It was, of course, just the moment for
him. The multitude, shaken out of its usual symphony-concert
calm, quivered with an excitement that was not suppressed. A
dozen times it had sprung to its feet to cheer and wave and
hurrah, as one person. When this man of culture and voice and
power, as well as a dark skin, began, and uttered the names of
Stearns and of Andrew, feeling began to mount. You could see
tears glisten in the eyes of soldiers and civilians. When the
orator turned to the coloured soldiers on the platform, to the
colour-bearer of Fort Wagner, who smilingly bore still the flag he
had never lowered even when wounded, and said, "To you, to the
scarred and scattered remnants of the Fifty-fourth, who, with
empty sleeve and wanting leg, have honoured this occasion with
your presence, to you, your commander is not dead. Though Boston
erected no monument and history recorded no story, in you and in
the loyal race which you represent, Robert Gould Shaw would have a
monument which time could not wear away," then came the climax of
the emotion of the day and the hour. It was Roger Wolcott, as
well as the Governor of Massachusetts, the individual
representative of the people's sympathy as well as the chief
magistrate, who had sprung first to his feet and cried, "Three
cheers to Booker T.
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