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Our Union and Its Defenders / An Oration, Delivered Before the Citizens of Burlington, N.J., on the Occasion of Their Celebration of the Eighty-Sixth Anniversary of Independence Day, July 4th, 1862 cover

Our Union and Its Defenders / An Oration, Delivered Before the Citizens of Burlington, N.J., on the Occasion of Their Celebration of the Eighty-Sixth Anniversary of Independence Day, July 4th, 1862

Chapter 2: CORRESPONDENCE.
By J. Howard Pugh
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About This Book

An oration delivered at a community Independence Day celebration argues that the midsummer timing of the anniversary fittingly evokes prosperity and gratitude, and uses history to teach the costs of liberty and the value of patriotic sacrifice. The speaker reveres the founders, contrasts past revolutionary trials with the present sorrow of civil war, and notes Congress meeting under threat. He urges publication of his remarks to fortify public conviction, exhorts citizens toward duty and principle, and expresses hope that with continued resolve the Union will emerge triumphant and future anniversaries will more often be occasions of jubilee.

CORRESPONDENCE.

Burlington, July 8th, 1862.

Doct. J. Howard Pugh,

Dear Sir:

Having listened, with so much pleasure and profit, to the appropriate and impressive address with which you favored us upon the occasion of the recent celebration of “Independence Day,” we feel that we would be failing in duty to those of our fellow-citizens who were deprived of that gratification, were we to allow the occasion to go by and be forgotten, without taking measures to have your remarks placed upon record, and to secure their dissemination among the reading and thinking members of the community. Our own sentiments are so ably and admirably expressed therein, that we wish to have the privilege of presenting them in that shape to all our friends, not only in our own community, but wherever we can reach them—for even by those who assisted at the original delivery, they will bear perusing often and pondering well. We trust they will carry conviction to the misguided, and strengthen the convictions of the wavering. With this view, we would request the favor of a copy of your address, for publication.

Very respectfully,

Your fellow citizens,

FRANKLIN WOOLMAN,
THOMAS ROBB,
THOS. MILNOR,
JOHN D. MOORE,
JOHN RODGERS,
N. T. HIGBIE,
M. KNOWLTON,
J. D. ABERCROMBIE,
RICH. SHIPPEN,
WM. R. ALLEN,
JAS. STERLING,
FRED. BROWN.

Burlington, July 11th, 1862.

Gentlemen:

Your kind and flattering favor of the 8th inst., is before me. You can judge better than I, and if you think there is anything, in my Oration, at all likely to strengthen or enlighten the patriotism of a single American, I shall cordially co-operate with you in publishing it. For, however much I may fear that its usefulness will fall far short of your wishes, yet, I know that no man now has a right to withhold a word, or refuse a deed which he has any just reason to suppose will aid, in the least, the cause of his country. Such reason you have given me in your kind and partial estimate of my effort, and for this I sincerely thank you.

Trusting that our beloved country, so dear to all our hearts, so freighted with all our hopes, may soon emerge triumphant from the fierce struggle with its foes,

I remain,

Very faithfully yours,

J. HOWARD PUGH.

To Messrs. Woolman, Robb, Milnor and others, Committee.