In Maine at Gettysburg is an address of Gen. Joshua Chamberlain to veterans of the 16th Maine at a post-war banquet. His eloquent address refers to the 16th's last stand near Oak Hill on the first day when they ripped their colors up and distributed the pieces prior to their capture. Here is part of Chamberlain's address: "Your colors, it was said, were lost. That word came to me when, on the morning of the second, I reached the crest far to the rear of that where you had stood; I felt a shock, but not of shame. For I knew something terrible must have befallen, and that there could have been no dishonor where you were. But when I came to know the truth of it all, I saw that instead of your colors being lost, they were eternally saved! Not laid down, but lifted up; not captured nor surrendered, but translated, - the shadow lost in substance! The flag, - it is the symbol of the Country's honor, power, law, and life. It is the ensign of loyalty, the bond of brotherhood for those who stand under it; a token and an inspiration. Hence it is held sacred by the soldier; as in great moments it is also by the citizen. All which that flag symbolized you had illustrated and impersonated; had absorbed into your thoughts and hearts, - your service and suffering into its own deeper meaning and dearer honor. Now it had done all a symbol could do; you had stood for all it stood for. Now the supreme moment had come. Nothing could be averted; nothing could be resisted; nothing could be escaped. That was an awful moment; passing that of death, it seems to me. Then the soul is born anew. No thought of yielding up the token of the Country's honor enters the heart of any one of you, though it has fulfilled its ends; though you are to go to prison and to death. Your Colonel, calm and dauntless, - commander still, - bids you break the staff that had borne it aloft, and tear that symbol single as your souls into many pieces as you had bosoms, and shelter them with your lives, lest that flag be touched by hostile hand, or triumphed over by living man! And they went with you to prison. And these bars and stars next your hearts helped you to endure those other bars, besetting you because you were true; helped you to look up to those other stars, where we dream all is serene and safe and free. [Here the long repressed feelings of the hearers broke into wildest demonstrations, in the midst of which a member of the regiment arose and took from his breast pocket a star of the old flag, at which the assembly lost all control of itself; and the General continued.] Yes, and through this tumult of cheers and tears, I see that you hold them still to your hearts, precious beyond words, radiant with the glory of service and suffering nobly borne; potent to transmit to other souls the power which has made them glorious!
Lost? There is a way of losing that is finding. When soul overmasters sense; when the noble and divine self overcomes the lower self; when duty and honor and love, - immortal things, - bid the mortal perish! It is only when a man supremely gives that he supremely finds.
That was your sacrifice; that is your reward."