Jason Elmer Hammond

“ Let us stand ready with willing hearts and hands to render the comrades every assistance that they may require of us on Memorial Day — whether it be to weave the laurel and the pine into chaplets for our heroes dead or to make glad the day for our heroes living—let all be done quietly as befits a day hallowed by tender associations. ”

“ Spring, with her sunshine and showers, has lifted the wintry mantle from Mother Earth and bid the buds and blossoms come forth in all their fragrance and beauty to fill the outstretched hands of the Union veterans, who, with their sweet spirit of fraternity, will place them above the last resting places of their comrades-in-arms that sleep in the City of Peace—whose boundaries extend from ocean to ocean, from the mountains to the gulf. With tenderness in our hearts let us remember those who sleep where no loving hands can bear them a garland of memory. ”

“ It will be to them an exemplified lesson of patriotism; teach them the day is to be held sacred to the Grand Army of the Republic as long as courage and liberty are held sacred by the American people. ”