Fort Massachusetts on Ship Island, Mississippi
Photograph taken by the author on March 19, 1998.
Headquarters, Ship Island, Miss.*
April 10th, 1863
Fellow soldiers--
For the first time in your military existence have you experienced the glories and the dangers of the battle field.
You have known what it is to meet the enemy face to face, and to overcome five times your numbers in a hotly contested action.--
You have snuffed the perfume of Powder--heard the key note of the bullets shrill music and are now conscious of the attractions and the horrors of grim visaged war.--
You have tested the question of your nations valor, and demonstrated to it fullest extent the capacity--the bravery--the endurance and the nobility of your race, and taught the malignant foe that a centuries oppression has not extinguished your manhood or suppressed your love of liberty, and that you have still a hand to wield the sword, and a heart to vitalize its blow.
Proudly have you borne the banner of Freedom--the delight of the true warrior's soul--through the thickest of the fray--its folds pierced and pierced with the leaden hail--without paling a star or defacing a stripe--its tattered condition the true emblem of your work, and your brave endeavors.
Heroes have you proven yourselves in the strife--nobly sustaining your countries honor and gloriously maintaining the valor of your profile. The brave ones, whose spirits winged their way to brighter spheres during the fierce struggle, are true martyrs in the holy cause of Freedom.-- They have offered themselves nobly upon the shrine of their countries existence, and their deeds are their glory--their glory their reward.-- Their names shall deck the page of history, and their process emblazon the escutcheon of our coming Republic.
Though moldering now within the silent Tomb, yet ever their souls as noble and as great as e'er rise to heaven from The battle field. Their spirits as brave as ever e'er unwrapped by clayey tenement.--
Let us then Remember their fate and their Reward.-- Let the name "Pascagoula" be wrought within the folds of our colors--a Page in the history of our career, an emblem of our achievement and an ernest of what the world may expect of those whose first deeds have been so valorous, whose acts have been so brave.--
Your Colonel,
Nathan W. Daniels.
* Col. Daniels' speech was taken verbatim from his
diary. His punctuation and spelling has been retained.
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