Comrades of the One hundred and fifteenth Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers:-After twenty-six years have rolled by we are once more permitted to assemble on this hallowed historic ground made famous by the daring and thrilling deeds that were here enacted by a host of gallant patriots whose praises will be sung and spoken to the farthest end of time.

To this grand army of the nation's truest and warmest defenders belonged our brave One hundred and fifteenth Regiment which, here, on these ever memorable days in July, 1863, especially distinguished itself by its cool courage and unflinching heroism.

Every member who fought here carries within his bosom the proud distinction of having participated in the battle that was a veritable Waterloo to the Confederacy and which saved the Nation from being destroyed by those whom it had sheltered and nourished under its fostering care.

Standing here to-day, our mind wanders back to the time when we fought, side by side, on this spot, and once more the stirring scenes are re-enacted that will live forever in our memory.

Here is the stone wall where we fought: beyond is the peach orchard where we deployed as skirmishers; there is the wheat-field where we rallied and where Sergeant Maily of my company was wounded through the lungs, and beyond looms up Little Round Top which was bristling with armed men.

How different the scene is now! Then all was confusion and uproar. The air was filled with the roar of artillery and the hissing of flying bullets. Now all is calm and peaceful as a bright summer noon.

The handful of comrades before me present strange and unknown faces; those that were in the vigor of manhood are now in middle age; they that were in the meridian of life are now gray and bent with the weight of years, while many of those who then shared our dangers and perils have dropped by the wayside, but their brave deeds live forever enshrined in our hearts.

The only comrade that the finger of time has touched lightly and whose appearance remains unchanged is Major Jeremiah J. Sullivan, our brave and efficient quartermaster.

This is a fitting time to recall some of the deeds of our regiment and to take a hasty retrospective view of its history. The One hundred and fifteenth Regiment was composed of a body of sturdy workingmen, mechanics and men otherwise employed in the civil walks of life who spontaneously answered the call of President Lincoln, and were organized under the direct superintendence of Robert E. Patterson, who became its first colonel.

In January, 1862, the regiment was mustered into service, and for a time was employed in guarding some five hundred rebel prisoners at Harrisburg. On the 25^th of June it was ordered to the Peninsula, and in July of the same year it was ordered to join the army of McClellan at Harrison's Landing, where it was assigned to the brigade commanded by General Francis E. Patterson, a brother of our colonel. On the 5^th of August it was engaged at the battle of Malvern Hill, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Thompson. This was its first fight. The next appearance was at Bristoe Station, on the 27^th of August, where it held an important position for two hours under a heavy fire of shot and shell. Here Major Lancaster was severely wounded in the left arm.

In the second battle of Bull Run and the battle of Chantilly the regiment again played an important part and its ranks were reduced by the loss of a number of officers and men.

At the battle of Fredericksburg its column stood firmly under a terrific enfilading fire of shot and shell. Chancellorsville will ever be conspicuous in history as the place where one of the most sanguinary battles for the Union was fought. Here, on a beautiful Sunday morning, on the 3d of May, 1863, the regiment, under command of Colonel Lancaster, who had joined us a short time previously, was ordered into the fight. The troops pressed forward, captured the breastworks, took four hundred rebel prisoners and two stand of colors. Here Lancaster fell, pierced through the head by a minie ball, and here also fell the brave Captains Connelly, Cromley and Dillon, and on the breastworks during the frightful conflict the canteen hanging by my side was shot through by a hissing ball. This memento of that scene of blood and carnage is one of my precious souvenirs. It is not much, it is only an old worn out canteen, and would probably have little interest to any one else, but every time I look upon its pierced side it calls afresh to my mind the many hair-breadth escapes we encountered and how often we were treading upon the very border line that separates this life from the great unknown.

I need not stop here to enumerate the list of battles in which the regiment was engaged. Yonder shaft, standing there as a companion to the many silent sentinels, keeping their watch over the famed battle-field, rears its majestic head to the heavens, as if proud of the distinguished honor conferred upon it, and with mute eloquence recounts to the passer-by the fields of bloody strife on which our brave regiment so bravely distinguished itself and where many of our comrades laid down their lives so that the cause of liberty, home and country might be perpetuated.

The only story that this shaft can give is the names of the battles. The sufferings, the dangers, the privations, the agonizing feelings are only written on the hearts of those who participated. These things no monument can tell, no tongue convey, no history recount. They have a language of their own. Our government could do no less than rear these granite and marble emblems to commemorate the deeds of valor and heroism which characterized the soldiers for the Union; but there is an ever-living monument which stands engraven upon the hearts of every loyal citizen, and is enshrined in the tears and sighs of thousands of tender and loyal mothers, sisters and daughters, and long after the corroding finger of time shall have crumbled into dust, will they be cherished and remembered by those patient and faithful sufferers. For many, as they gather about the family hearthstone, will relate to those around them the woes, the suffering and the anguish which they endured while those near and dear were yielding their lives so that the Union might be maintained.

Thus will the story of the rebellion be transmitted to generations yet unborn, and into their lives will be infused the same principles of truth and right for which our forefathers fought; and thus our nation will ever remain the land of the free and the home of the brave.

I am proud to say that our regiment is entitled to the exalted distinction of never having shown the white feather in any of the battles or engagements in which it participated. No one dares question its bravery, but if there is any one battle more than another in which our regiment displayed cool courage and covered itself with glory it was at the battle of Gettysburg, under the inspiring cry of "Go in boys, we are defending our own soil."

There are some scenes that come up to me now and will come up again and again in fancy's dream, that are not altogether dark, but which smile at us still from the buried past, the songs we used to sing as we marched along, the stories we related at the bivouac and campfires, and the feasts we enjoyed when the good things were sent to us by our friends from home. These are pleasant pictures framed in memory.

And now, comrades, while we are standing here on this hallowed spot, let us strive to carry home with us in our lives, a deeper spirit of patriotism, a warmer friendship and a more thorough love for our fellows-in-arms who are still left with us. Many of those who belonged to our number, sleep their last sleep in far away graves; many of them in a soil that was unfriendly to them and to whom was denied even so much as a simple stone to mark their last resting place. Their graves were dug amid the fierce and terrible exigencies of grim and cruel war, where no loving hand could deck their silent tombs. Only the gentle breezes and whispering winds are sighing a mournful dirge over them. Let us, therefore, who are yet alive, the more tenderly cherish the friendship of one another, and so live for one another and for our beloved country that we bring no reproach upon our fame and name, so, that in after years, when the shadows of life are lengthening over the landscape of existence, and when memory, like the seamed and fluted lengths of some old forest oak, opens to a passing breeze, we may ever hold in our hearts the recollection of duty well done to our country and our comrades.
 

(Note: Captain A. Frank Seltzer, of Company G, was born on November 20, 1837. He was an attorney who was admitted to the bar in 1865 and remained in active practice for 52 years. He died on June 12, 1917, at the age of 79.)