192                                HISTORY OF THE SEVENTY-EIGHTH REGIMENT O.V.V.I.

"HEADQUARTERS THIRD DIVISION, SEVENTEENTH A. C., NEAR LOUISVILLE, KY., June 17, 1865. }

SOLDIERS OF THE THIRD DIVISION:

           During the last four years you have displayed your valor and patriotism on scores of battle-fields. Scores of times have you met the enemies of our Government in deadly conflict, and always proved victorious. You never suffered your lines to be broken. You never attacked a position held by the enemy which you failed to take. You were never driven from a position which you attempted to hold.

           When the history of the bloody battles and arduous campaigns in which you have been engaged shall be truthfully written, it will be said of the Old Third Division; 'It never knew defeat. It was never late in battle, and never early out. It never turned its back to the enemy. It always responded to the order 'FORWARD' with a cheer, and moved without regard to the obstacles or force in its front, and stopped only when its own commanders sounded the 'HALT.'

           Of your name and record you justly feel proud. Soldiers guard well that name! Do not suffer any feeling of disappointment or discontent to lead you to tarnish that proud record, which, up to this day, is without a blot.

           When we left North Carolina, our visions of home with its comforts and endearments were strong, and we all hoped, ere this, to have been there. But the Government determined that it would be imprudent to so soon disband us. Every inch of territory lately in rebellion is still under martial law, and while martial law prevails the war is not at an end, though active warfare may have ceased. Until reorganization takes place, and civil tribunals are ready to assume the control now exercised by the military authority, soldiers will be needed, and we may justly and legally be held in the service, and have no just right to complain.

           It is the expressed desire of the Government to reduce its expenses as much and as rapidly as possible, and we may rely upon being mustered out of the service at the earliest moment deemed prudent by the authorities at Washington.

           In the meantime a liberal percentage of the men will be permitted to visit their homes on furlough, and the usual discipline must be maintained in camp.

           As to our further movements, or when we may expect to be mustered out of the service, you know all that your commander knows, and you ought to expect no more. But while held in the service, let us do our duties like men and soldiers, that when discharged we may bear to our homes and to our friends, names which they always may feel proud.

M. D. LEGGETT,

Brevet Major-General Commanding."

           In July the Third Division was ordered to be mustered out. The rolls were soon completed, and the Seventy-Eighth started for Columbus among the first, where it arrived on the evening of the 14th, when it was paid off and disbanded. Each soldier, now a citizen, started for his home, feeling grateful to a kind and merciful Providence for protecting him through four years of bloody war, and permitting him to return home to his family and friends.

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