MaineMilitia.com

This is a copy of General Chamberlain's response to the toast "Gettysburg" at a banquet in honor of the Sixteenth Maine Infantry and the Fifth Battery at the city of Gardiner.

Comrades of the Sixteenth and of the Fifth Battery:

It is an honor to be held worthy of your remembrance on an occasion like this. The reason of it is to be found in your own generous hearts. Something there may be in the suggestion that the flag of the Sixteenth in the field was finally furled within my own lines. In the closing days of our service, when all those varied experiences grouped under the wide and deep word, "casualties," together with the gradual expiration of terms of enlistment, brought men of the same state nearer and nearer together, it happened that the men of the Sixteenth left in the field (as had been those of the Second and the Sharpshooters) were consolidated with those of my old regiment, the Twentieth, and so were mustered out of the service in the division of which I was the commanding officer. I have evidence of my ability at that time to recognize merit in that I, forthwith upon the opportunity, invited one of your gallant field officers to a place on my staff.
Another thing which perhaps gives me footing here is that queer "back action" attraction by which "extremes meet." This is often from deep, underlying likeness, and not apparent antagonism. Here it is like service in opposite extremes of position. You were at one post of peril and responsibility; I was at another, the most remote from you in place, but so similar in circumstance, that I can understand and appreciate all your experience. With you, on the first day, the army put her right foot forward; with us, on the second, she put her left foot forward. She changed steps, but she stood.

You have given me a great theme. It is large enough to occupy our minds as many days as it held us, body and soul, breasting that tidal wave of July, 1863. I have not now, for this, so many minutes at my disposal. I pass it with a glance.

Gettysburg was a great battle; - its action, its tension, its hazards, its consequences. In it were involved questions of gravest import, the decision of which makes history; interests social, political, moral, personal; of gravest import for ourselves, for others, for our Country, for man every-where; - for the present time, and for the future, for which also we hold a trust. The pressing question before us was whether we had a Country; whether we were a people, or only a populace; whether we were a mere chance partnership holding only by human will, or a Nation, constituted in the purpose and calling of Divine Providence, bound together for the noblest ends of living by ties of mutual interest and honor,-bonds both of love and of law. All the great ruling sentiments which have their vital source in this idea,- patriotism, loyalty, self-devotion for the sake of others,- nay, what we consider the supreme of earthly blessings, - largest scope for individual life, endowments, powers, genius, character,-these were the prize for which we wrestled in that terrible arena. More than this. Involved here, too, were widest human interests. We fought for the worth of manhood; for law and liberty, which mean freedom for every man to make the most of himself, with good-will of all others, without oppression or depression.

We had a deep, inward vision of this at the time, though unspoken and perhaps unclear; but no man even now can realize in thought, or recognize in fact, all the reach of good coming forth out of that struggle and that victory for the Country and for mankind. But I must leave that line of thought with you.

Looked at in its outward aspect, this battle will be a great example in military history,-a study in military science;-the strong features of the ground affording great variety of offensive and defensive measures, of grand and minor tactics, in a sudden and unplanned great battle; not without exemplification, too, of the tactics of the moral forces and the desperate strategy of sacrifice. In its inward aspect, example, also, of the value of character in the stress and strain of battle, where mature experience and intelligent comprehension have enforced the lesson that manly fortitude, heroic valor, and pride of honor must be organized into the habit of discipline and unquestioning obedience, without which all generalship is vain. But this thought, also, leading so far and so deep, I must leave for you to finish.

Many have claimed the honor of selecting the final standing-ground of our great defense. To this sudden change of position, some participants were "accessory before the fact," and some "after the fact." But if there was any selection here, it was a very "natural selection." Whether, in every instance, it led to the "survival of the fittest," there may be some question. The manner of its occupancy is not suggestive of deliberate premeditation, but our people certainly may be said to have chosen this ground and promptly taken it, in decided preference to matters and things they had found at the further front.

But who, let me ask, made it possible to select this ground but the men who on that first of July, all day long, held Lee's advance at bay, until our scattered corps could come up by forced marches and take advantage of the field? Who but John Buford with his cavalry, and Reynolds with his First Corps,-you of his infantry and artillery,- with masterly skill, stubborn courage, and unexampled devotion, wrought that marvelous opening by which it was Meade, and not Lee, who secured that heart of hills made awful in memory and immortal in history? That magnificent fighting of the First Corps, I do not know where it was ever surpassed!

But my theme grows intense as it narrows and nears. I know how you of the Fifth Battery, after holding your salient angle at the front until it was an island in the raging sea of foes, galloped straight through their enveloping masses, through embarrassing masses of fugitives as well, and with your brazen throats calling a halt to the astonished enemy thinking to sweep away our right flank, where for a sublime moment you alone gave check to the battle tide.

I know what you men of the Sixteenth did, when your General of Division, seeing that it must be a stricken field, and that he must save what he could of his command by the last resort of falling back with his main body while a few should hold the fighting front, and that this could be done only by men who would make a stand equal in every test of character to the desperate charge of a "forlorn hope," calling to Colonel Tilden, said: "Take that hill and hold it at any cost!" I know how you stood, and where, and when, and at what cost! Your General knew what men you were. You knew perfectly well what your service was to be. It is a terrible duty, but a glorious honor. You saw what was coming, front and left and right. You saw the last of the Union army leave the field. You saw the blades of the great shears coming down and down, and closing in and in-and you knew they must meet, and cut and crush all that was between. But you stood; you fought it out to the last and "at any cost" indeed. Environed, enveloped, crushed, overwhelmed, - as truly heroic, as much to be held in highest honor and dearest memory, as if you had died at your posts, every man of you!

Some such example as yours, the great Apostle must have had in mind when he exhorts his followers to "put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand."

So many of you were captured, -not because you were placed in a false position, with flank unguarded and rear cut off; not because you were not well handled; not because you were "caught napping" or "cooking coffee"; but because you would not yield your post, though disaster and death swirled and swept around and over you.

Your colors, it was said, were lost. That word came to me when, on the morning of the second, I reached the crest far to the rear of that where

you had stood; and I felt a shock, but not of shame. For I knew something terrible must have befallen, and that there could have been no dishonor where you were. But when I came to know the truth of it all, I saw that instead of your colors being lost, they were eternally saved! Not laid down, but lifted up; not captured nor surrendered, but translated,- the shadow lost in substance! The flag,- it is the symbol of the Country's honor, power, law, and life. It is the ensign of loyalty, the bond of brotherhood for those who stand under it; a token and an inspiration. Hence it is held sacred by the soldier; as in great moments it is also by the citizen. All which that flag symbolized you had illustrated and impersonated; had absorbed into your thoughts and hearts-if I should not rather say, itself had absorbed your thoughts and hearts,-your service and suffering into its own deeper meaning and dearer honor. Now it had done all a symbol could do; you had stood for all it stood for. Now the supreme moment had come. Nothing could be averted; nothing could be resisted; nothing could be escaped. That was an awful moment; passing that of death, it seems to me. Then the soul is born anew. No thought of yielding up the token of the Country's honor enters the heart of any one of you, though it has fulfilled its ends; though you are to go to prison and to death. Your Colonel, calm and dauntless,-commander still,-bids you break the staff that had borne it aloft, and tear that symbol single as your souls into as many pieces as you had bosoms, and shelter them with your lives, lest that flag be touched by hostile hand, or triumphed over by living man! And they went with you to prison. And these bars and stars next your hearts helped you to endure those other bars, besetting you because you were true; helped you to look up to those other stars, where we dream all is serene and safe and free.

[Here the long repressed feelings of the hearers broke into wildest demonstration, in the midst of which a member of the regiment arose and took from his breast pocket a star of the old flag, at which the assembly lost all control of itself; and the General continued.]

Yes, and through this tumult of cheers and tears, I see that you hold them still to your hearts, precious beyond words, radiant with the glory of service and suffering nobly borne; potent to transmit to other souls the power that has made them glorious!

Lost? There is a way of losing that is finding. When soul overmasters sense; when the noble and divine self overcomes the lower self; when duty and honor and love,-immortal things,-bid the mortal perish! It is only when a man supremely gives that he supremely finds.

That was your sacrifice; that is your reward.

Major Abner B. Small.

from "Maine at Gettysburg" ( Portland, Maine: Lakeside Press, 1898).