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the resistless power of which, mountains bristling with bayonets have bowed, cities have surrendered, and millions of brave men been conquered.

Although I have been but for a short period your commander, we are not strangers; affections have sprung up between us during the long years of doubt, gloom, and carnage, which we have passed through together, nurtured by common perils, sufferings and sacrifices, and riveted by the memories of gallant comrades, whose bones repose beneath the sod of a hundred battle-fields, nor time nor distance will weaken or efface.

The many marches you have made, the dangers you have despised, the haughtiness you have humbled, the duties you have discharged, the glory you have gained, the destiny you have discovered for the country in whose cause you have conquered, all recur at this moment, in all the vividness that marked the scenes through which we have just passed.

From the pens of the ablest historians of the land, daily are drifting out upon the current of time page upon page, volume upon volume of your heroic deeds, which floating down to future generations will inspire the student of history with admiration, the patriot American with veneration for his ancestors, and the lover of Republican liberty with gratitude to those who in a fresh baptism of blood reconsecrated the powers and energies of the Republic to the cause of constitutional freedom. Long may it be the happy fortune of each and every one of you to live in the full fruition of the boundless blessings you have secured to the human race.

Only he whose heart has been thrilled with admiration for your impetuous and unyielding valor in the thickest of the fight, can appreciate with what pride I recount the brilliant achievements which immortalize you, and enrich the pages of our National history. Passing by the earlier,

but not less signal triumphs of the war, in which most of you participated and inscribed upon your banners such victories as Donelson and Shiloh. I recur to campaigns, sieges, and victories that challenge the admiration of the world, and elicit the unwilling applause of all Europe. Turning your backs upon the blood-bathed heights of Vicksburg, you launched into a region swarming with enemies, fighting your way and marching without adequate supplies, to answer the cry for succor that came to you from the noble but beleaguered army at Chattanooga. Your steel next flashed among the mountains of Tennessee, and your weary limbs found rest before the embattled heights of Missionary Ridge, and there with dauntless courage you breasted again the enemy's destructive fire, and shared with your comrades of the Army of the Cumberland the glories of a victory than which no soldiery can boast a prouder.

In that unexampled campaign of vigilant and vigorous warfare from Chattanooga to Atlanta, you freshened your laurels at Resaca, grappling with the enemy behind his works, hurling him back dismayed and broken. Pursuing him from thence, marking your path by the graves of fallen comrades, you again triumph over superior numbers at Dallas, fighting your way from there to Kenesaw Mountain, and under the murderous artillery that frowned from its rugged heights, with a tenacity and constancy that finds few parallels, you labored, fought, and suffered through the broiling rays of a southern midsummer's sun, until at last you planted your colors upon its topmost heights. Again on the 22d July, 1864, rendered memorable through all time for the terrible struggle you so heroically maintained under discouraging disasters, and that saddest of all reflections, the loss of that exemplary soldier and popular leader, the lamented McPherson, your matchless courage turned defeat into a glorious victory. Ezra Chapel and Jonesboro' added

new luster to a radiant record, the latter unbarring to you the proud Gate City of the South. The daring of a desperate foe in thrusting his legions northward, exposed the country in your front, and through rivers, swamps and enemies opposed, you boldly surmounted every obstacle, beat down all opposition, and marched onward to the sea.

Without any act to dim the brightness of your historic page, the world rang plaudits when your labors and struggles culminated at Savannah, and the old "Starry Banner" waved once more over the walls of one of our proudest cities of the sea-board. Scarce a breathing spell had passed when your colors faded from the coast, and your columns plunged into the swamps of the Carolinas. The sufferings you endured, the labors you performed, and the successes you achieved in those morasses, deemed impassable, form a creditable episode in the history of the war. Pocataligo, Salkahatchie, Edisto, Branchville, Orangeburg, Columbia, Bentonville, Charleston, and Raleigh, are names that will ever be suggestive of the resistless sweep of your columns through the territory that cradled and nurtured, and from whence was sent forth on its mission of crime, misery and blood, the disturbing and disorganizing spirit of secession and rebellion.

The work for which you pledged your brave hearts and brawny arms to the Government of your fathers, you have nobly performed. You are seen in the past, gathering through the gloom that enveloped the land, rallying as the guardians of man's proudest heritage, forgetting the thread unwoven in the loom, quitting the anvil, and abandoning the workshops, to vindicate the supremacy of the laws, and the authority of the Constitution! Four years have you struggled in the bloodiest and most destructive war that ever drenched the earth in human gore; step by step you have borne our standard, until to-day over every fortress and

arsenal that rebellion wrenched from us, and over city, town and hamlet, from the lakes to the Gulf, and from ocean to ocean, proudly floats the "starry emblem" of our National unity and strength.

Your rewards, my comrades, are the welcoming plaudits of a grateful people, the consciousness that in saving the Republic you have won for your country renewed respect and power, at home and abroad; that the unexampled era of growth and prosperity that dawns with peace, there attaches mightier wealth of pride and glory than ever before to that loved boast "I am an American Citizen !"

In relinquishing the implements of war for those of peace, let your conduct ever be that of warriors in time of war, and peaceful citizens in time of peace. Let not the luster of that bright name that you have won as soldiers, be dimmed by any improper act as citizens, but as time rolls on let your record grow brighter and brighter still.

JOHN A. LOGAN,

Major-General

CHAPTER VII.

Appointment as Minister to Mexico.-Elected to Congress.-One of the Impeachment Prosecutors.-Promoted to the United States Senate.-Originated the Observance of Decoration Day. -Commander of the Grand Army.-Prominent Candidate for the Presidency.-The Speech of Senator Cullom.-Gen. Logan's Nomination for Vice President.

His retirement to private life was but temporary. Such a noble and valuable man could not be spared from the councils of the Nation. President Johnson recognized the fact that much power for good was lying idle and tried to persuade General Logan to take an appointment as Minister of the United States to Mexico. But the General did not take the office for two reasons, viz: First, he preferred to live in the United States, and second, he did not like to receive such an honor from such a man as Andrew Johnson.

In 1868 he was again elected to Congress and he took his seat again in the Hall from which four years before he went forth resolved "never to return to political life until every Rebel had laid down his arms." Then followed the exciting period when the impeachment of President Johnson was before Congress. General Logan was no disinterested spectator. He believed the will of the people should be obeyed by every public servant. He was fearless and persistent in his patriotic desire to have the States of the South restored in such a way as to make further opposition to the Government useless. He sympathized with Secretary Stanton and he was appointed one of the prosecutors on the part

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