Taft Honors Veterans at Petersburg
President Taft went to Petersburg, Va., May 19, to be present at the unveiling of a monument erected on the Petersburg battle-field, in memory of General Hartranft and of the Pennsylvania volunteers who fell there. Veterans in blue and veterans in gray were present. In the course of his address the President said: “In the time which has passed, the bitterness of the internecine struggle has passed away, and we now treasure as a common heritage of the country the bravery and the valor of both sides in that controversy. The Army of the Potomac, under Grant and Meade, was seconded and supported by a generous government. It was hardly so with the Confederate forces. Scantily clothed, rarely on more than half rations, and for considerable periods reduced to an allowance of bacon and meal hardly sufficient to sustain life, the long winter through, their shivering infantry manned the ever-extending siege works, and made head against the vigorous assaults of the Union army until their depleted ranks were no longer equal to the defense of their attenuated lines, and they gave up a contest which by any other soldiers but the tried and seasoned veterans of the Army of Northern Virginia would long before have been abandoned. Pennsylvania’s pride must be in the victory achieved by her men against so brave, resolute, and resourceful an enemy. That we can come here to-day and in the presence of thousands and tens of thousands of the survivors of the gallant Army of Northern Virginia and of their descendants establish such an enduring monument by their hospitable welcome and acclaim, is conclusive proof of the uniting of the sections and a universal confession that all that was done was well done, that the battle had to be fought, that the sections had to be tried, but that in the end the result has inured to the common benefit of all.”