No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 251 



indelibly inscribed. Grandly they responded to tlieir country's call, 

 "to arms," and nobly did they do their duty as soldiers. Wherever 

 there was need of the bravest, there were the Pennsylvania volun- 

 teers, and when the high tide of the Rebellion threatened to engulf 

 this old Keystone State, it was one of her sous who led the forces of 

 resistance, that turned it backward and saved the Union — Meade, 

 Gettysburg. 



Gettj-sburg! Gettysburg! Pennsylvania is proud of thee, the 

 nation's most hallowed shrine before which she bows her head in 

 reverence and honor to-day. 



The graves of many of these dead of ours, are kept green in our 

 National Cemeteries. Thousands are resting in the quiet church- 

 yards and cemeteries throughout the land, while still other' thou- 

 sands sleep where they fell by mount, and stream and sea, the place 

 of their sepulture, unknown to all save God and His angels. 



But whether they lie beneath the ocean's wave, or in the dismal 

 swamp, beneath Southern palms or Northern pines; in the dark 

 ravine or on the mountain top, a grateful nation pays its tribute 

 of devotion to their loyalty to-day. 



May we not hope, friends, that in that land where there is no 

 wa-r, where the sun of peace sets, that there is to-day a grand 

 rendezvous, a grand rally of all the soldier dead who have borne 

 arms in the defense of our country here on earth, and that they can 

 see and know and are rejoicing in the prosperity that hath blessed 

 the land for which they suffered so much. And may we not hope, 

 too. that the men in Gray who met the men in Blue with bayonet 

 and bullet on the many gory battle-fields^ are with them, are rejoic- 

 ing with them, and, figuratively speaking, drinking with them from 

 the same canteen. 



Comrades of the Grand Army, as memory slowly fills up the lines 

 in your furrowed faces and obliterates the gray hairs on your heads, 

 we recognize you as the ''boys of '61," who, in the full vigor of early 

 manhood, when face and form were aglow with the fire of youth, 

 went forth so grandly with the Comrades whose graves we deeorate 

 to-day to battle for your country. 



Each year your skeleton ranks are being reduced still more by the 

 details ordered to join the forces beyond the river, but to you who 

 still remain in camp on this side, I will speak a word of encourage- 

 ment. When you have listened to the solemn sound of taps for the 

 last time, when the reveille shall waken you no more, and you have 

 turned in for that long, dreamless sleep that comes to each of us, 

 may it comfort you to know that so long as the Stars and Stripes 

 shall kiss the freeborn breeze, so long shall your deeds be spoken, 

 so long shall jonv names be carved in the historic marble of your 

 State and Nation, so long shall your descendants and all citizens 

 in whom you have by your example kindled the fire of your unquench- 

 able patriotism, assemble on each recurring Memorial Day to re- 

 count your struggles and to place a flower upon the soil that shelters 

 a soldier's bivouac. 



And now friends, in closing, I would say that although Memorial 

 Day is a day dedicated to the memory of our soldier dead, it should 

 also be a day of introspection by every citizen. 



There have been other republics, groat and grand and strong, 

 but where are they to-day? Where is Greece, that mother of re- 



