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We are met, comrades, to pay a brother's tribute to those who marched shoulder to shoulder with us in the army of Northern Virginia, whose hearts we knew, How our hearts beat more quickly at the recollection of that grand old army! When I think of the humble private, foot-sore and weary, toiling on after his tattered standard, shoeless and ill-clothed, munching his hard-tack, and eating his bacon raw to make it last the longer, yet all with a cheerfulness unfailing, because, forsooth, it was the best his country had to give; of the grand men who led our lines and breathed their spirit into lesser souls; of the glorious knight of the nodding plume; of the fierce, fiery God of War so meekly bowing to his God, but to his God alone; and then as my thought rests in the contemplation of the grand chieftain, who united in one majestic person the ardor of patriotism, the sublimity of genius, the dignity of greatness, whose name lit each eye and inspired every heart, himself so calm, so true—as thus the grand picture of our country and its cause, of that glorious army, and that most glorious leader rises before my mind, I think that surely