”TO THE MEMORY OF OUR SOLDIER DEAD.

Twenty-seven years ago today the sun dawned at Gettysburg upon the direst scene of carnage and strife the world has ever known. Some forty thousand men lay dead or dying in and about those fields; two of our dearest and most beloved comrades, Lieut. Cyren B. Lawton and Dana P. Chandler, were among that number; their sacrifice was complete, their young lives so full of promise, so dear to them and to the loved ones at home were surrendered. Also during the “war fifteen others who volunteered from Wilmington were either killed in battle, or taken from the hospital to their final resting place, under the beat of muffled drum and distant minute-gun, viz.:

Albert Allen, Edward R. Allard, Charles E. Boyd, David J. Dibble, Lysander A. Dennison, James R. Dickinson, John H. Farnum, Lewis H. Lamb, Cyron O. Rice, George A Rice, H. D. Searles. John O. Strickland, Andrew J. Vose, Jonas F. Ware, William H. Wilson; seventeen in all, a long list, a heavy tribute for our little town. New people, new life will soon occupy our places; let us teach our children and the coming generation to reverence the memory of these men who so nobly fought and died that there might be no severance of these United States of America.”

Reference Data:

Reunion of the Sons and Daughters of the Town of Wilmington, VT, by Wilmington (VT.) Citizens and Kittridge Haskins, 1890, pages 118-9