Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/333

 the Chickamauga Park Commission and the nation, for preservation. I said:

As Chief Executive of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, representing that great commonwealth, and as surviving soldiers of a war momentous in its consequences, we have come from the far away North to the mountains of Tennessee to assist at the dedication of a monument to commemorate the services of a single regiment upon one of the battlefields of that war. We bare our heads to the breezes, and our feet tread the soil of a typical Southern state. While we recall the events of the forty years ago we do not forget that earlier time, when the riflemen of these mountains, with a brave leader from among their own people, in behalf of a cause to which we too were committed, marched to New Orleans to deal destruction to the veterans of Wellington. We do not forget the three Presidents whom Tennessee gave to our common country or the lasting impress they made upon the development of our national affairs. We clasp your hands and as we grasp them we see all plainly that, no matter how much we may have differed and no matter how fiercely we may have contended in deadly conflict, the results of that war led necessarily to the advancement of the South as well as of the North, and brought all sections of the country together in a closer compact, under a firmer and more durable government. To bring about those results no part of the American people made greater efforts, endured more hardships, and submitted to more personal sacrifices than those who lived in the mountain regions of this state. What La Vendee was to the royalists of the French Revolution, Eastern Tennessee was to the cause of the Union during the War of 1861. No losses could appall those brave people and no dangers could intimidate them. The defeats of the early part of the war did not dismay them and the march of contending armies through their valleys and the terrific battles fought within sight of their homes only strengthened their faith. Death in its most terrible form confronted them and they never faltered. The voice of their fiery Methodist parson, as from these hill-tops he hurled denunciation or sang a pæan of victory, echoed all over the United States giving heart to the timid and encouraging the strong. No other people hailed the final triumph with more pious gratitude, and their only reward was the consciousness of duty well performed and the Rh