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 The Blue and the Gray United. 339

our comrades battled and died, our children will stand at their graves with love, admiration and approval of their course, and offer up the prayer, " God bless and perpetuate their memories."

I am thankful for this opportunity and this occasion to defend the right.

The Blue and the Gray United.

THE CHICKAMAUGA MEMORIAL ASSOCIATION.

In December last a patriotic movement, which is enlisting warm and general interest, was inaugurated in Washington, D. C., to organize a joint memorial association of Union and Confederate veterans, to acquire and preserve the battlefield of Chickamauga and mark it with suitable tablets and monuments.

Its claims were earnestly pressed in a communication (which is herewith reproduced) to the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette of De- cember 8th last, from General H. V. Boynton, of Washington, D. C., whose efforts towards organization have since been untiring :

The idea originated at the recent reunion of the Society of the Army of the Cumberland at Chicago. A committee was appointed to take the matter into consideration and report to the Society next September at its meeting at Chattanooga. A conference will soon be held at Washington between representatives of that committee and ex -"Confederate officers who served on that field, with a view of con- sidering a plan and taking immediate preliminary steps toward its accomplishment. Some of the most distinguished of these officers are now in Congress or the Departments. Those who have thus far considered the matter have in mind an organization formed after the general plan of the Gettysburg Memorial Association, only differing from it in any essential feature in its being a joint association of both Union and Confederate veterans, and in having all States, North and South, concerned in the project that had troops engaged on that field, provided they make appropriations to mark the positions of their soldiers with appropriate monuments or tablets.

There is no other great battlefield of the war where Northern and Southern veterans could meet harmoniously and with equal satisfac- tion to preserve the field of their magnificent fighting. The Union army fought there for Chattanooga and won it. The Confederate