It is said that at the crisis of Solferino, Marshal McMahon appeared
with his corps upon the field of battle, his men having run for
seven miles. We need not go abroad for examples of endurance and
soldierly bearing. The achievement of Sedgwick and the brave Sixth
Corps, as they marched upon the field of Gettysburg on that second
day of July, far excels the vaunted efforts of the French Zouaves.

Twenty-four hours later we stood on that same ground. Many dear
friends had yielded up their young lives during the hours which had
elapsed, but, though twenty thousand fellow-creatures were wounded
or dead around us, though the flood gates of heaven seemed opened
and the torrents fell upon the quick and the dead, yet the elements
seemed electrified with a certain magic influence of victory, and as
the great army sank down over-wearied in its tracks it felt that the
crisis and danger was passed,--that Gettysburg was immortal.

May I not, then, well express the hope that never again may we or
ours be called upon so to celebrate this anniversary? And yet now
that the passionate hopes and fears of those days are all over,--
now that the grief which can never be forgotten is softened and
modified by the soothing hand of time,--now that the distracting
doubts and untold anxieties are buried and almost forgotten,--we
love to remember the gathering of the hosts, to bear again in memory
the shock of battle, and to wonder at the magnificence of the
drama. The passion and the excitement are gone, and we can look at
the work we have done and pronounce upon it. I do not fear the sober
second judgment. Our work was a great work,--it was well done, and
it was done thoroughly. Some one has said, "Happy is the people
which has no history." Not so! As it is better to have loved and