The person who at their first assembling led them to the field is 97 years of age. has been forty years in the regular service and in seventeen pitched battles. and the drummer is 84. In lieu of a cockade they wear in their hats a blackcrape as expressive of their sorrow for the mournful events which have occasioned them at their -late time of life to take arms against their brethren in order to preserve that liberty which they left their native country to enjoy. Speaking of our forefathers. let me remind the gentleman from Massachusetts of the fact that among the signers of the Declaration of Independence there were a number of foreignborn citizens. and let me tell him .that in the name of the naturalized citizens of America. in the name of that class of our population which has at all times in the history of this country responded patriotically to every call America has made upon itthat I claim these men. who risked their lives that liberty might live. despite the fact that they were foreignersas our forefathers. The great men of Revolutionary times have on every occasion gratefully acknowledged the indebtedness of America to its foreignborn population. and among thousands of proofs of this assertion let me insert here what was said by the foremost of all Americans. by George Washington. in answer to an address of the Irish. Catholics.
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naturalized