{
  "schema": "tga.work.v1",
  "identifier": "dresden:vol-9:address-to-the-86th-illinois-regiment",
  "slug": "address-to-the-86th-illinois-regiment",
  "title": "Address to the 86th Illinois Regiment",
  "subtitle": "Peoria, Illinois, 1866.",
  "excerpt": "A fragment of Ingersoll's 1866 address to the 86th Illinois Regiment at their anniversary meeting in Peoria — a reflection on the meaning of the war just ended.",
  "year": 1866,
  "volume": 9,
  "category": "Political",
  "author": {
    "name": "Robert G. Ingersoll",
    "wikidata": "Q360326",
    "viaf": "44331023"
  },
  "isPartOf": {
    "title": "The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll",
    "edition": "Dresden Edition",
    "publisher": "C. P. Farrell",
    "year": 1900
  },
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/",
  "url": "https://thegreatagnostic.com/works/address-to-the-86th-illinois-regiment/",
  "wordCount": 2013,
  "body": "• This is only a fragment of a speech made by Col. Ingersoll\n    at Peoria, 111., in 1866, to the 86th Illinois Regiment, at\n    their anniversary meeting.\n\nPeoria, Ills\n\n1865.\n\nTHE history of the past four years seems to me like a terrible dream.\nIt seems almost impossible that the events that have now passed into\nhistory ever happened. That hundreds of thousands of men, born and\nreared under one flag, with the same history, the same future, and, in\ntruth, the same interests, should have met upon the terrible field of\ndeath, and for four long years should have fought with a bitterness and\ndetermination never excelled; that they should have filled our land with\norphans and widows, and made our country hollow with graves, is\nindeed wonderful; but that the people of the South should have thus\nfought—thus attempted to destroy and overthrow the Government founded\nby the heroes of the Revolution—merely for the sake of perpetuating the\ninfamous institution of slavery, is wonderful almost beyond belief.\n\nStrange that people should be found in this, the nineteenth century, to\nfight against freedom and to die for slavery! It is most wonderful that\nthe terrible war ceased as suddenly as it did, and that the soldiers of\nthe Republic, the moment that the angel of peace spread her white wings\nover our country, dropped from their hands the instruments of war\nand eagerly went back to the plough, the shop and the office, and are\nto-day, with the same determination that characterized them in battle,\nengaged in effacing every vestige of the desolation and destruction of\nwar. But the progress we have made as a people is if possible still more\nastonishing. We pretended to be the lovers of freedom, yet we defended\nslavery. We quoted the Declaration of Independence and voted for the\ncompromise of 1850.\n\nFrom servility and slavishness we have marched to heroism. We were\ntyrants. We are liberators. We were slave-catchers. We are now the\nchivalrous breakers of chains.\n\nFrom slavery, over a bloody and terrible path, we have marched to\nfreedom. Hirelings of oppression, we have become the champions of\njustice—the defenders of the right—the pillar upon which rests the\nhope of the world. To whom are we indebted for this wonderful change?\nMost of all to you, the soldiers of the great Republic. We thank you\nthat the hands of time were not turned back a thousand years—that the\nDark Ages did not again come upon the world—that Prometheus was\nnot again chained—that the river of progress was not stopped or\nstayed—that the dear blood shed during all the past was not rendered\nvain—that the sublime faith of all the grand and good did not become\na bitter dream, but a reality more glorious than ever entered into the\nimagination of the rapt heroes of the past. Soldiers of the Eighty-sixth\nIllinois, we thank you, and through you all the defenders of the\nRepublic, living and dead. We thank you that the deluge of blood has\nsubsided, that the ark of our national safety is at rest, that the dove\nhas returned with the olive branch of peace, and that the dark clouds of\nwar are in the far distance, covered with the beautiful bow.\n\nIn the name of humanity, in the name of progress, in the name of\nfreedom, in the name of America, in the name of the oppressed of the\nwhole world, we thank you again and again. We thank you, that in the\ndarkest hour you never despaired of the Republic, that you were not\ndismayed, that through disaster and defeat, through cruelty and famine,\nthrough the serried ranks of the enemy, in spite of false friends, you\nmarched resolutely, unflinchingly and bravely forward. Forward through\nshot and shell! Forward through fire and sword! Forward past the corpses\nof your brave comrades, buried in shallow graves by the hurried hands\nof heroes! Forward past the scattered bones of starved captives! Forward\nthrough the glittering bayonet lines, and past the brazen throats of the\nguns! Forward through the din and roar and smoke and hell of war! Onward\nthrough blood and fire to the shining, glittering mount of perfect and\ncomplete victory, and from the top your august hands unfurled to the\nwinds the old banner of the stars, and it waves in triumph now, and\nshall forever, from the St. Lawrence to the Rio Grande, and from the\nAtlantic to the Pacific!\n\nWe thank you that our waving fields of golden wheat and rustling corn\nare not trodden down beneath the bloody feet of invasion—that our homes\nare not ashes—that our hearthstones are not desolate—that our towns\nand cities still stand, that our temples and institutions of learning\nare secure, that prosperity covers us as with a mantle, and, more than\nall, we thank you that the Republic still lives; that law and order\nreign supreme; that the Constitution is still sacred; that a republican\ngovernment has ceased to be only an experiment, and has become a\ncertainty for all time; that we have by your heroism established the\nsublime and shining truth that a government by the people, for the\npeople, can and will stand until governments cease among men; that you\nhave given the lie to the impudent and infamous prophecy of tyranny, and\nthat you have firmly established the Republic upon the great ideas of\nNational Unity and Human Liberty.\n\nWe thank you for our commerce on the high seas, upon our lakes and\nbeautiful rivers, for the credit of our nation, for the value of our\nmoney, and for the grand position that we now occupy among the nations\nof the earth. We thank you for every State redeemed, for every star\nbrought back to glitter again upon the old flag, and we thank you\nfor the grand future that you have opened for us and for our children\nthrough all the ages yet to come; and, not only for us and our children,\nbut for mankind.\n\nThanks to your efforts our country is still an asylum for the oppressed\nof the Old World; the arms of our charity are still open, we still\nbeckon them across the sea, and they come in multitudes,'leaving home,\nthe graves of their sires, and the dear memories of the heart, and with\ntheir wives and little ones come to this, the only free land upon which\nthe sun shines—and with their countless hands of labor add to the\nwealth, the permanence and the glory of our country. And let them come\nfrom the land of Luther, of Hampden and Emmett. Whoever is for freedom\nand the sacred rights of man is a true American, and as such, we welcome\nthem all. We thank you to-day in the name of four millions of people,\nwhose shackles you have so nobly and generously broken, and who, from\nthe condition of beasts of burden, have by your efforts become men. We\nthank you in the name of this poor and hitherto despised and insulted\nrace, and say that their emancipation was, and is, the crowning glory\nof this most terrible war. Peace without liberty could have been only a\nbloody delusion and a snare. Freedom is peace; Slavery is war.\n\nWe must act justly and honorably with these emancipated men, knowing\nthat the eyes of the civilized world are upon us. We must do what is\nbest for both races. We must not be controlled merely by party.\n\nIf the Government is founded upon principle, it will stand against the\nshock of revolution and foreign war as long as liberty is sacred, the\nrights of man respected, and honor dwells in the hearts of men.\n\nWe thank you for the lesson that has been taught the Old World by your\npatriotism and valor; believing that when the people shall have learned\nthat sublime and divine lesson, thrones will become kingless, kings\ncrownless, royalty an epitaph, the purple of power the shroud of death,\nthe chains of tyranny will fall from the bodies of men, the shackles\nof superstition from the souls of the people, the spirit of persecution\nwill fly from the earth, and the banner of Universal Freedom, with the\nwords \"Civil and Religious Liberty for the World\" written upon every\nfold, blazing from every star, will float over every land and sea under\nthe whole heavens.\n\nWe thank you for the glorious past, for the still more glorious future,\nand will continue to thank you while our hearts are warm with life. We\nwill gather around you in the hour of your death and soothe your last\nmoments with our gratitude. We will follow you tearfully to the narrow\nhouse of the dead, and over your sacred remains erect the whitest and\npurest marble. The hands of love will adorn your last abode, and the\nchisel will record that beneath rests the sacred dust of the Heroic\nSaviors of the Great Republic. Such ground will be holy, and future\ngenerations will draw inspiration from your tombs, courage from your\nheroic examples, patience and fortitude from your sufferings, and\nstrength eternal from your success.\n\nI cannot stop without speaking of the heroic dead. It seems to me as\nthough their spirits ought to hover over you to-day—that they might\njoin with us in giving thanks for the great victory,—that their faces\nmight grow radiant to think that their blood was not shed in vain,—that\nthe living are worthy to reap the benefits of their sacrifices, their\nsufferings and death, and it almost seems as if their sightless eyes are\nsuffused with tears. Then we think of the dear mothers waiting for their\nsons, of the devoted wives waiting for their husbands, of the orphans\nasking for fathers whose returning footsteps they can never hear; that\nwhile they can say \"my country,\" they cannot say \"my son,\" \"my husband,\"\nor \"my father.\"\n\nMy heart goes out to all the slain, to those heroic corpses sleeping far\naway from home and kindred in unknown and lonely graves, to those poor\npieces of dear, bleeding earth that won for me the blessings I enjoy\nto-day.\n\nShall I recount their sufferings? They were starved day by day with\na systematic and calculating cruelty never equaled by the most savage\ntribes. They were confined in dens as though they had been beasts, and\nthen they slowly faded and wasted from life. Some were released from\ntheir sufferings by blessed insanity, until their parched and fevered\nlips, their hollow and glittering eyes, were forever closed by the angel\nof death. And thus they died, with the voices of loved ones in their\nears; the faces of the dear absent hovering over them; around them their\ndying comrades, and the fiendish slaves of slavery.\n\nAnd what shall I say more of the regiment before me? It is enough that\nyou were a part of the great army that accomplished so much for America\nand mankind.\n\nIt is but just, however, to say that you were at the bloody field of\nPerryville, that you stood with Thomas at Chickamauga and kept at bay\nthe rebel host, that you marched to the relief of Knoxville through\nbitter cold, hunger and privations, and had the honor of relieving that\nheroic garrison.\n\nIt is but just to say that you were with Sherman in his wonderful march\nthrough the heart of the Confederacy; that you were in the terrible\ncharge at Kenesaw Mountain, and held your ground for days within a few\nsteps of the rebel fortifications; that you were at Atlanta and took\npart in the terrible conflict before that city and marched victoriously\nthrough her streets; that you were at Savannah; that you had the honor\nof being present when Johnson surrendered, and his ragged rebel horde\nlaid down their arms; that from there you marched to Washington and\nbeneath the shadow of the glorious dome of our Capitol, that lifts from\nthe earth as though jealous of the stars, received the grandest national\novation recorded in the annals of the world.\n"
}