Eighty-fourth Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers (Infantry.) — A Closer Reading

Who was the best-posted man on the news? Who the readiest army talker? Who the general of the camp? The soldier who was not to be found in the place his enlistment called for at the time when his presence would have told the most. It was well for the service that he did not number many.

The good soldier ought not to think it strange, that while in everything he did his duty well, he does not know much of what was done by regiments other than his own, and would be at a loss to name the number of his brigade. Nor must he think that the comrade who stood side by side with him is the only one mistaken as to the occurrences of the day. It would not always be well to accept a soldier of F Co. as a conclusive witness of what took place in E, if there was dispute as to the bearing of the line, or question as to who were the first to advance; and yet, no one will bend the ear more gladly than myself to the recitals of a soldier in fact, because I know he gives us the truth as he believes it. And if from the data thus gathered, I count that his regiment was killed, or permanently disabled, _twice over_, I attribute the outcome to a lack somewhere in the arithmetic, and not to a vice in the teller. And, in this connection, we must not overlook the fact of the years that have rolled by.

Twenty-four years and upward in the circle of time measures the distance of our close, very close, comradeship. Years more than many of us had numbered prior to the beginning, four years before, of the long campaign. The time that preceded and that which has followed, make up the life ordinary. The long four years was the life within the other life. In it was contained the greatest of all wars from the world's beginning--the war against the Rebellion of '61.

Hirelings were not upon either side. It was man against man in the fight. Soldier pitted against soldier. Each individual fighting the issue which so nearly concerned himself. It was the greatest of rebellions against the grandest of governments. If successful, to the world it would have been the greatest and grandest of revolutions.

It was not a conflict forced merely for the perpetuation of slavery. It was the institution of the crown, and not preservation of the chattel, that most moved the men who moved the South from '89 to '61.

One people in Government, and yet in sentiment and practices as far removed as two nationalities.

Forced together for mutual protection, yet from the beginning thoroughly divided in appreciation of the powers of a free Government.

In human direction, it was but a run of time when, as a Government for the whole people, the central power would be called upon to assert itself by the power of might.

Neither of the existing conditions would have won to the United States a constitution for their government such as was fixed upon and has come along, in its working, through all of a hundred years, without a break in any of its provisions. Every line of it, as to matters upon which men could differ, was agreed upon for submission to the States, because necessity admitted of no other course for them, and live. Well was it for stability of government that, when the substance had passed the gauntlet of discussion, the words had been so well placed, that not a letter was found astray when the great test came. No document of State has, or ever will, surpass it in sublimity of thought, arrangement of detail, clearness of expression, or force of power.

In the assertion of the binding powers of this Constitution, the 84th had a part, and _you_ were a part of the 84th.

Your Regiment was to you the command which centred your soldier life. And well content may you be in the fact that its character secured for it a reputation which, to every one of us, has been a thing of just and affectionate pride. I studied that character at a time when I felt it was everything to me. My varied experiences in the several positions in company and regiment, which I occupied, enabled me to found a judgment which has been very clearly and most positively strengthened by every knowledge since acquired. The tenor of that judgment you will gather as I proceed, in an imperfect way, to tell you a part of what you did in three years and nine months of soldier life.

RECRUITING AND ORGANIZATION.