Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 37.djvu/173

Rh singing of the "Star Spangled Banner" by the assemblage, the four young women pulled the cords which unveiled the monument.

General Joseph Plume presented the monument to New Jersey, and Governor Fort, of New Jersey, accepted it and transferred it to the Fifteenth Regiment Association. The acceptance speech was made by Theodore F. Swayze, after the singing of "Columbia." The principal address of the occasion was made by State Senator Joseph S. Freelinghuysen, of Raritan, N. J., who received much applause. In referring to the Fifteenth Regiment, Senator Freelinghuysen said:

"It was recruited from five of the northern counties—Rundeston, Sussex, Somersex, Warren and Morris. They came from plow and workshop, from desk and pulpit, the flower of mankind, eager at their country's call.

"With banners flying they marched peacefully away from Flemington, N. J., most of them never to return, but all destined to engage in a conflict unparalleled in the annals of war. They fought from Fredericksburg to Appomattox: in more than twenty-four conflicts, such well known battles as Gettysburg, Wilderness, Chancellorsville and Spotsylvania. It was on this battlefield Spotsylvania however, that they accomplished a crowning achievement by passing the enemy's line and holding a most strategical position. This enemy did not yield before it had exhausted half of the regiment. So desperate did both sides fight that their deeds of valor will be remembered as long as the war itself, and after this monument shall have crumbled into dust."

The closing address was made by Col. A. W. Whitehead, of Newark, N. J. Colonel Whitehead said in part: "These men shed their young blood and laid down their lives so that you and I might enjoy the privilege of a free country, and be benefited by the great institutions which always emanate therefrom.

"How loudly these things speak of the existence in the minds of men of a religious belief that there is a fundamental law which provides that the well being of one is the concern of all. It is on this theory that our government rests, and it is the belief in that principle and love for the government so founded that