struggling country, he desired that his father might be assured that his son had died with a steadfast faith in an immortal life beyond the grave.

My countrymen, the occasion which convenes us allures us to the contemplation of a future of greater concord and more perfect unity. On the heights of Bunker Hill, the gratitude of the North has raised an imposing memorial to the heroes who fell there in defence of liberty. Here, after the lapse of a century, on the lowlands of Georgia, on the birthday of Washington, we dedicate this monument to another martyr who fell in the cause of our country's independence. Erected on the same continent, by the shores of the same ocean, to heroes of the same war, whose services and blood were a part of the price paid for our common freedom, these monuments should stand as effectual protests against sectional animosities, forever appealing, in their impressive silence, for a republic of concordant hearts as of equal States.

THE JASPER TABLET IN MADISON SQUARE, SAVANNAH
To the Heroic Memory of
SERGEANT WILLIAM JASPER,
Who, Though Mortally Wounded,
Rescued the Colors of his Regiment,
In the Assault

On the British Lines about the City,
October 9th, 1779.

A Century Has Not Dimmed the Glory
Of the Irish-American Soldier

Whose Last Tribute to Civil Liberty
Was His Noble Life.

1779-1879

A YOUNG WEST POINT ARTILLERYMAN

MORRIS SCHAFF

[From the Spirit of Old West Point; copyright, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1907. John Pelham was graduated from West Point as a cadet from Alabama. He passed into the Confederate army,

rising to the rank of major in the light artillery attached to Stuart's cavalry. He was killed at his guns. His deeds have been celebrated in verse by J. R. Randall and in stories by John Esten Cooke.

One of Pelham's comrades at West Point was the brave Cushing, of the Union army, another artilleryman, who was killed at Gettysburg. He fell "at the peak of Pickett's daring charge."]

WEST POINT is a great character-builder, perhaps the greatest among our institutions of learning. The habit of truth-telling, the virtue of absolute honesty, the ready and loyal obedience to authority, the display of courage, that virtue called regal, to establish these elements of character, she labors without ceasing. The primary agency in accomplishing her ends is, and has been, the tone of the corps of cadets. This tone, which is the very life and breath of the Military Academy, traces back to a fine source, to the character of Washington and the best society at the time of the Revolution. . . .

Whenever I review my cadet life, my fellow-cadets, West Point, its buildings, its surroundings, and its ceremonies, all seem to be clothed in the sweet distance and softness of shadows. And yet, when the war is interposed for a background, and the fields that I have been on, and where some of them lost their lives, come back into view, with the quickness of a dream the battalion becomes distinct and real. The other day I saw the name of Pelham; and at once West Point flashed upon my sight, and I saw him as if he were alive, walking across the "area"; and then I saw myself riding across the field near Brandy Station, where he was mortally wounded on the 17th of March, 1863.

Of all the men at West Point in my day, either as cadets or as officers, his name will possibly outlast all save Cushing's; and I have sometines thought that at the last the dew will sparkle brighter on Pelham's memory. And that for two reasons. First, he was closely associated with Lee. . . And, second, poetry and sentiment, under some mysterious and inexorable impulse, seem loath to turn away from great dis

plays of courage and sacrifice of life for a principle; most lovingly of all will they cherish the ashes of brilliant youth associated with failure.

But however this may be, his name, the "gallant Pelham,' is now almost a household word throughout the South. He went directly from West Point into the service of the Confederacy, and soon was serving with Jeb Stuart. By his courage Stuart's artillery checked our attacking column at Fredericksburg right under the eye of Lee, who, it is said, exclaimed, "Is it not glorious to see such courage in one so young?"

Later, in his general orders of that disastrous defeat of our army, John Pelham's was the only name Lee mentioned below that of a major-general. He spoke of him as "the gallant Pelham"; "and THAT 'from Lee," says one of our distinguished Southern friends, "was worth more than any rank in any army, more valuable than any title of nobility or badge of any order." He was known henceforward as "the gallant Pelham."

There was something about him that gave to Lee's extolling epithet that immediate response of aptness such as we feel when in poetry or elevated prose a word or phrase strikes the eye and ear as the complete expression. It was felt in our lines; for one of our West Point acquaintances, — I think it was Custer, taking advantage of a flag of truce shortly after the battle, sent this message to Pelham, "I rejoice, dear Pelham, in your success.'

He was gracefully tall, fair, a beautiful dancer; it may well be asserted that nature was in a fine mood when she moulded his clay. Her final touch was to give him a pronounced cowlick on his forehead, which added a mounting swirl to his blond hair. His eyes generally were cast thoughtfully downward, and a little wrinkle on his brow gave just the faintest suggestion of a frown on his otherwise unclouded face.

In the winter of 1863-64, while with the army of the Potomac, more than once I travelled the road to Kelly's Ford, where he was killed, little dreaming of the height of his present fame. I

have always thought of the circumstances connected with the coming home of his body to his widowed mother in Alabama, as having about them all the beauty and mystery of night. It was on a night when the moon was full; and her still, white light lit the way by the cotton fields he knew so well, and lay softly white on the roof and in the dooryard of home. His mother stood waiting for him on the doorstep, and, as they bore him up to her, she whispered through falling tears, "Washed in the blood of the Lamb that was slain." She is buried beside him in the little village graveyard at Jacksonville, Alabama.

O'RORKE, THE GENTLE AND THE BRAVE

MORRIS SCHAFF

[From The Spirit of Old West Point; copyrighted, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1907. O'Rorke was graduated in 1861 with Cushing and Custer. This picture of a gallant young Irishman is a fitting companion piece to the portrait of Pelham. General Schaff's heart goes out to all these brave boys. "I see them with the flush of youth in their cheeks," said he, "and a mist gathers over my eyes as one after another their faces come into view."]

Two or three others died there (at Gettysburg) who were at West Point with me, namely, "Rip" McCreery in the Confederate service, Hazlett, little "Dad" Woodruff, and "Pat" O'Rorke, in our own. McCreery and Hazlett were secondclass men; Woodruff and O'Rorke in the class just ahead of mine. The latter drilled me when I was in the animal state, and I was very—and I'm afraid hopelessly awkward. . O'Rorke, spare, middle size, raven-black hair, his face inclined to freckles, but as mild as a May morning, his manner and voice like that of a quiet gentleman - O'Rorke had been a hodcarrier in Rochester when he was appointed to West Point. Previous appointments all having failed to pass, the Congressman, his pride probably ruffled by the fact, set out determined

to find somebody in his district who could graduate at the Military Academy, and, turning away from the rich and the high social levels, made choice of O'Rorke.

There is something that sets the heart beating warmly in the fact that when his friends of toil learned that he stood at the head of his class, they chipped in some of their hard earnings and bought him a costly, richly engraved gold watch as a token that they were proud of him.

He drilled me under the blooming horse-chestnuts on the east side of the academic hall; I can see him now, and the pompon-like, pink-tinted blossoms among the long leaves over us. Moreover, I well remember his looking at that same watch while giving me a little rest, probably nearly bored to death, and wondering how much longer he had to endure it. He graduated at the head of his class, and in less than eighteen months was brevetted twice for gallant and meritorious conduct. The fall before the Gettysburg campaign he became Colonel of the 140th New York; and sometime in the winter of 1862-63 I received, while at Fort Monroe, his wedding-cards, and the bride's name was Bridget. Many a time since, I have thought that this was his boyhood love, to which he had remained steadfast while honors were falling about him. However that may be, he was killed while standing on a large boulder, his regiment immediately before him, and fighting almost at the very muzzles of its guns on Round Top.

HARVARD COLLEGE IN THE WAR

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR.

A statue of

[From an answer to a toast in Memorial Hall, Harvard, June 25, 1884. The portrait referred to is that of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, killed at Fort Wagner, South Carolina, 1863. him by St. Gaudens stands on Beacon Hill, Boston. that of Charles Russell Lowell, a general of cavalry, mortally wounded at Cedar Creek, Virginia, 1864.]

The bust is