I accept these beautiful testimonials of your regard with
feelings of sincerest gratitude, mingled with somewhat of embarrassment. It is
a fortunate thing for a commander to be able in the discharge of the duties
imposed upon him to win the kindly regard of those over whom he happens to be
placed. I had not dared to hope, when I parted with you many months ago, that
such had been my good fortune, for I felt that whatever obligation our mutual
connection had created rested solely with me. I was proud of the division. I
felt that I had every reason to be grateful to the officers and men composing
it for their gallant and unexceptionable bearing and for the high reputation
which their conduct had won for the command. I was, therefore, naturally
somewhat embarrassed when I learned that it was your intention to revive the
memories of old associations by an occasion such as this. It did not need,
however, these substantial evidences of your good will to recall the old
division and the pleasant days of my connection with it. I have never forgotten
it, nor the friends who made it dear to me and honoured in the army.
Though some of these are not present with you to-day, and
will never again take part in any scene on earth, yet all are alike remembered.
Some, too, who united with you in the preparations for this day have not lived
to see it, or are absent suffering from wounds received at Fredericksburg or on
the glorious field of Gettysburg. The brave young Kirby and the gallant
Colonels of the 59th and 82nd New York and of the 69th Pennsylvania Volunteers,
and others whose names are equally familiar, are numbered with the unforgotten
dead. They have fallen in recent battles, giving up their lives for the glory
of the Union and the honour of our arms. If there had been anything wanted to
give your offering a value which no words of mine can express, it would have
been that it comes partly in the name of brave men killed in battle for their
country. It comes, too, from a part of that command which was so often led to
battle by that noble soldier Sumner, whose last and proud boast it was that
they “never lost a gun.”
Have I not reason, then, to be grateful for these your
gifts, recalling, as they do, both the living and the dead — brave men who are
still contending for their country's honour, and noble martyrs who have borne
witness with their blood to the sincerity of their patriotism.
Gentlemen, I honour the division which you represent; I
shall always look back with pride to the time I commanded it, as who would not
be proud to lead such men to battle under Sumner? With such a leader for your
corps, it is no wonder that your record is unspotted. I glory in the reputation
you have won under the gallant veteran whose memory the nation reverently
honours, and I rejoice that under the leadership of Hancock and Gibbon so grand
a future awaits you.
I have followed your career with interest through the
varying fortunes of the war, observing always with sorrow whenever any of the
old, familiar names appeared on the honoured roll of the fallen. I shall still
continue to watch your course in the campaigns that are to follow, and I shall
feel that every new honour you may win will be another ornament added to this
beautiful sword, increasing, if that were possible, the value I attach to it.
Deeply appreciating the kind feelings you have expressed for me, I accept these
testimonials of your esteem with pardonable pride. I thank you with all my
heart.
SOURCE: George William Curtis, Correspondence of
John Sedgwick, Major-General, Volume 2, p. 152-4
