I need not say how glad and proud I am, my dear old comrades, to meet and greet you, one and all, once more. It seems but a brief time since the Eighth Kansas Volunteer Infantry pitched its tents in the blue-grass of this reserve and was mustered into the service of the United States, “for three years or during the war.” But the whitening locks of many of its survivors, gathered here to-day, tell the story of time’s flight. The youngest soldiers in its ranks have reached middle age; the oldest are now old men, nearing the sunsets of their lives. The hardships and privations of march and camp, and the casualties of battle, decimated its ranks again and again during its long term of service; very many have since died, their lives shortened by wounds, or by the wasting effects of the campaigns in which they participated; and the survivors, scattered all over the country, probably do not number one-third of the 1,081 men who have answered “here” at its roll-calls. It is no vain-glorious or empty boasting to declare, as I do, that to have served in the Eighth Kansas is a fact of which any man has a just right to be proud. No regiment in the army of the Union during the civil war can cite participation in campaigns of greater magnitude, events of more romantic and exciting interest, or marches over a vaster scope of country. Nor did any regiment more conspicuously illustrate, in camp or field, a loftier devotion to duty, a more unselfish patriotism, or a more constant courage. The Eighth Kansas served in four of the great armies of the Union. Its service began in what was afterwards known as the “Army of the Frontier;” thence, early in 1862, it was transferred to the “Army of the Mississippi;” in the summer of the same year it joined the “Army of the Ohio;” and in November became a part of the “Army of the Cumberland.” With this military division it served until its final muster-out, in January, 1866. Its organization was commenced in August, 1861, and its first company was mustered in on the 28th of that month. By the 12th of October, eight companies had been recruited and mustered; in December, the ninth was added; and early in January the regiment had its full complement. In February, however, a reorganization of Kansas regiments was made. Companies D and H, of the Eighth, which were cavalry, were transferred to the Ninth Kansas; Companies F and K were consolidated, and three companies of Colonel Graham’s battalion were transferred to the Eighth, making it a full regiment of infantry.