"Well, now, these twelve hundred, and the one hundred times twelve hundred, and the one million of men that went out into the field of battle to fight for our Union, feel as that speaker felt, that if they should all be shot down the cause of liberty would still go on. "You all, and the Union, felt that around you, and above you, and behind you, was a force and a cause and an immortal truth that would outlive your bodies and mine, and survive all our brigades, and all our armies, and all our battles. "Here you are to-day; in the same belief we shall die; and yet we believe that after us the immortal truth for which we fought will live in a united nation, a united people, against all factions, against all sections, against all divisions, so long as there shall be a continent of rivers, and mountains, and lakes. "It was this great belief that lifted you all up into the heroic height of great soldiers in war; and it is my belief that you cherish it to-day, and carry it with you in all your pilgrimages and in all your reunions. In that great belief and in that inspiring faith, I meet you and greet you to-day, and with it _we will go on to whatever fate has in store for us_." Ah! how little the devoted band of comrades dreamed that bright October morning, with what a new and solemn meaning before another twelve months those earnest words would come back to them! Four weeks after the battle of Chickamauga, General Rosecrans sent Garfield on to Washington to report minutely to the War Department and to the President, the position, deeds, resources, etc., of the army at Chattanooga. In the mean time he had received the promotion of major-general "for gallant and meritorious services at the battle of Chickamauga;" and during the year previous, the Nineteenth Congressional District of Ohio had elected him as their representative to the Thirty-Eighth Congress. Garfield's whole heart and soul were with the army, he would have preferred to serve his country on the field rather than in the halls of state; but when he expressed his desire to President Lincoln, the latter urged him to resign his commission and come to Congress. There were plenty of major-generals, he said, but able statesmen--like angels' visits--were few and far between. It was universally believed, at this time, that the war was drawing to a close; and still another consideration that influenced Garfield in his decision was the fact that a voice in military legislation might be of great assistance to his comrades in arms. So, on the 5th of December, 1863, after three years of military life, he resigned his army commission with its high emoluments, for the poor pay and arduous work of a Congressman. It is a little singular that he should have filled in Congress the very seat left vacant by the death of Joshua R. Giddings, his boyhood's hero. Did the mantle of this brave Elijah fall upon him, too, I wonder?