[669] counsellors, magistrates, officers with whom I have been surrounded in the government; and from the members of five successive Legislatures,—there is no return in my power to render, but the sincere acknowledgments of a grateful heart.On Saturday, Jan. 6, His Excellency Alexander H. Bullock was sworn into office, and delivered his inaugural address; and John A. Andrew passed out from the portals of the Capitol a private citizen. On page 405 of the 63d volume of the Governor's correspondence during the war, each volume containing 500 pages, is the following ‘Executive Military Order,’ dated Jan. 6, 1866, which was the last official act of his life.
The honor of having been associated in an important and confidential position with John A. Andrew during the five eventful years of his administration, is an honor of which any man may well be proud. That he should cause to be placed upon the imperishable records of the Commonwealth, as his last official act, the order above quoted, is ample compensation for active and important service in the five long years of sanguinary conflict which marked the advent and the close of this great and good man's official life. With the end of Governor Andrew's administration closed the drama of the great war. How well he served his country, and upheld the dignity and honor of Massachusetts, these pages may in some degree serve to illustrate. But we feel and know how much greater and nobler he was than our inanimate words can disclose. At a period when the State required its wisest and best man
