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 A M 
 
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 HER ARMY. 
 
 
 v^ 
 
 
 
 
 Bj' ROBERT MACKENZIE. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW; 
 
 EDINBURGH; AND NEW YORK. 
 
 186:;. 
 
AMERICA 
 
 AND 
 
 HER ARMY. 
 
 y 
 
 By ROBERT MACKENZIE. 
 
 . ^ 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW; 
 
 EDINBUKGH; AND NEW YORK. 
 
 1865. , " 
 
 (JL>i 
 
 f I L. 
 
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 ^)927 
 
PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 HERE has been nothing more unusual, in the 
 course of the war now raging in America, 
 than the care which the Northern people have 
 exercised over their Army. It can scarcely fail to intro- 
 duce a new era in the history of the Soldiers of Christian 
 States. America has impressively reminded us of the 
 duty we owe to the men who fight our battles. The 
 noble lesson she has taught cannot be too carefully 
 studied. Britain is proud of her Army ; and well she 
 may, for no body of men have ever been more splendidly 
 endowed with the highest soldierly qualities. But the 
 British people have given themselves little concern about 
 the welfare of these men. In the following pages an 
 attempt is made to sketch the remarkable measures 
 which America has adopted for the benefit of her Army, 
 with the remarkable results which have been gained. It 
 is earnestly to be hoped that the example will not be 
 
IV PRE FA TOR V NO TE. 
 
 lost upon US. It would be an interesting, and it is by 
 no means an improbable consequence of this contest, 
 that the condition of our own and of other European 
 Armies should be permanently ameliorated by the ex- 
 ample which America has given. 
 
 Dundee, Fdruaiy 1865. 
 
AMERICA AND HER ARMY. 
 
 HEN the Slave-owners' Rebellion broke out the 
 American army numbered about twelve thousand 
 men. A few months afterwards it numbered three- 
 quarters of a million. A mighty influence had 
 passed through the land. Modern history does not record 
 another popular uprising of dimensions so huge, of enthusiasm 
 so intense. An immense multitude of vdiolly unskilled men 
 rushed to arms. It was reasonable to fear that the vastness of 
 the movement, and the untutored eagerness which inspired it, 
 would in a lamentable degree impair its efficacy. England 
 will long remember how an antiquated military system wrought 
 the ruin of her brave army in the Crimea. America can 
 scarcely be said to have had any military system or any military 
 experience at all, when, suddenly, three-quarters of a million of 
 men engaged in actual warfare became dependent upon her. 
 It was possible for the Government to supply these men, while 
 they were in health, with indispensable food and clothing, 
 although even in these simpler details disastrous failure might 
 well occur. But how was disease to be prevented from con- 
 suming the strength of the army? How were needed attentions 
 to be supplied to the inevitable multitudes of sick? ■ How were 
 
o CARE TAKEN OF THE AMERICAN ARMY. 
 
 the wounded to be cared for with tolerable promptitude 1 What 
 provision was possible for the moral welfare of the troops 1 A 
 volunteer army of three-quarters of a million under a Govern- 
 ment equally inexperienced with itself, was suggestive to all 
 students of war of the most frightful miseries which it is possible 
 to imagine. 
 
 But the American army has been watched over with a loving 
 care which no army ever knew before. It has had, in health and 
 in sickness, physical comforts such as have seldom been en- 
 joyed by soldiers. It has had a spiritual and intellectual pro- 
 vision of unexampled copiousness. On its behalf has been 
 exercised an amount of thoughtful, enlightened, energetic good- 
 ness, the exhibition of which must open a new era in the 
 history of armies. No Government did this; no Government 
 could do it. Only a people could do it profoundly in earnest 
 to secure the triumph of a great national cause. The people 
 of America who sent forth armies to fight, themselves under- 
 took the supply of their wants. It is my task to tell by what 
 agency, and with what wisdom, and liberality, and noble self- 
 denial this has been done. 
 
 The darkest page in the bloody annals of war is that which 
 records the fate of the wounded. By a few hours of the 
 murderous toil of battle, thousands of men are suddenly stretched 
 in helplessness and pain upon the field ; and our power to 
 relieve suffering is immeasurably weaker than our power to 
 inflict it. For hours and days men wounded and dying must 
 lie uncared for in their agony. From one of Napoleon's fields 
 the groans of the wounded rose for days " Hke the roar of a 
 distant cataract," till slowly, and through untold agonies, the 
 silence of death settled down over thirty thousand tortured 
 and forsaken men. In some measure all battle-fields resemble 
 this. It must be so. The soldiers of an army inflict more 
 wounds in one day than the surgeons can bind up in many 
 days. Tlicrc is no help for it. The poor woundt^d man must 
 
SUFFERINGS IN THE CRIMEA. 7 
 
 wait his turn, which, under the best circumstances, may come 
 late, and under the worst does not come at all. 
 
 Equally imperfect, ordinarily, is the provision made for the 
 spiritual welfare of the soldier. He is placed in circumstances 
 of unusual temptation. His life is one of fierce excitement, 
 followed by a reaction which too readily seeks the support of 
 vicious indulgence. Those influences which in peaceful life 
 restrain men from wickedness are here withdrawn. There is 
 no public opinion to support feeble virtue. The motives which 
 emanate from home are attenuated by distance. Evil example 
 and seductions abound on every side. In camp there is in- 
 sufficient employment, and idleness ever persuades to evil. 
 A few chaplains accompany the army, but their influence is 
 little felt. What are they among so many? It is a really 
 deplorable fact, that States ordinarily impose upon die men 
 who fight their battles costlier sacrifices than those of hfe or 
 limb. The moral welfare of the soldier perishes under the pres- 
 sure of those temptations to which his mode of life subjects him. 
 
 THE LESSONS OF THE CRIMEAN CAMPAIGN. 
 
 The care of the soldier has been left to Governments. For 
 the most part, indeed, the soldier has filled no higher function 
 than that of ministering with his blood to the passions of some 
 despotic monarch, who bestows upon his instruments the 
 minimum of care requisite to preserve in some tolerable degree 
 their efficiency. It was during the Crimean War we saw the 
 dawn of a better system. The English people sent forth their 
 army to that war, and they trusted that the care of the Govern- 
 ment would guard it against all sufferings which were not 
 inevitable. But they learned ere long that their brave soldier's 
 were perishing of hunger and cold and untended wounds. The 
 condition of the army was indeed frightful. During the three 
 last months of 1854 the mortality was at a rate which would 
 
8 LESSONS OF THE CRIMEAN CAMPAIGN, 
 
 have annihilated the army in two years. In January 1855 it 
 was at a rate which would have annihilated the army in ten 
 months. The story of the sufferings which the men endured 
 during that awful winter was most piteous to hear. England was 
 moved as England had seldom been moved before. Government 
 sent out a Commission with powers for tlie summary correction 
 of all abuses. But it is not the action of Government, however 
 effective that may have been, which interests us here. We now 
 meet, for the first time in history, with the direct, systematic 
 interposition of the people on behalf of their soldiers. A great 
 national effort was made to relieve sufferings which were felt to 
 be a national scandal. Every gift which the heart of man 
 could devise, or the fingers of woman could frame, was eagerly 
 offered by a grieving and indignant people. Nor was the yet 
 more precious offering of personal service withheld. Ladies 
 went forth, under the leadership of Miss Nightingale, to nurse 
 the sick and wounded men in hospital. It was a new thing in 
 war. From of old, kings had made war, and flung aside their 
 poor tool the soldiei when wounds or sickness impaired his effi- 
 ciency. Here, a great people make war, and they watch tenderly' 
 over the brave men who have been disabled in their service. 
 
 It was a noble example, and it has been greatly fruitful o( 
 good. America has gained much wisdom from her study of 
 that Crimean Campaign. Its history was vividly present to 
 many of her leading minds. Its frightful waste of life — the 
 certainty that if the lives of American soldiers were similarly 
 wasted the rebellion could never be put down — the sanitary 
 measures resorted to at length by the British Government, with 
 their marvellously beneficial results — the direct action, by gift 
 and personal service, of the British people, — all these topics 
 were anxiously examined. And now, upon a scale very much 
 greater, and with an organization very much more perfect, tlie 
 system initiated before Sebastopol has l)een transferred to the 
 camps and hospitals of the vast American battle-field. The 
 
A TTITUDE OF AMERICAN CHRISTIANITY. 9 
 
 American Government supplies the usual food and clothing to 
 the army, and has done it, upon the whole, regularly and 
 copiously. But the agents of the American people are every- 
 where present with ample stores of everything which men 
 require, to place it beyond all doubt that the American soldier 
 shall suffer no discomfort which it is possible to avert. There 
 is a perfect fitness in this arrangement. For of this war it may 
 be said, without qualification or reserve, that it is the war oi 
 the people. No Government made it. It was from the outset 
 the fixed determination of the Northern people that the nation 
 should not submit to dismemberment. This is their own war, 
 fought by their own sons and brothers, for the accomplishment 
 of purposes which are dearer to them than life. It is fitting 
 that they should assume the care of an army which is so 
 emphatically their own. We do not understand aright the 
 spirit in which the American people are fighting out this mighty 
 quarrel till we know what care they bestow upon their soldiers. 
 
 ATTITUDE OF AMERICAN CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 There are those among us who are contented to know this, 
 the greatest of contemporaneous transactions, only through the 
 wild caricatures of some of our leading periodicals. By such 
 persons it is still believed that the North is fighting in a frenzy 
 of rage and hate — that the impulses of tlie war are the wicked 
 lust of empire and thirst for blood — that a recklessness ot 
 human life and suffering pervades the North — that the war is 
 conducted in a savage spirit, unworthy of civilization. In 
 presence of these assertions, one naturally reflects that there 
 exists in America a very large body of Christian men and 
 women- — intelligent, sincerely pious, and in a high degree 
 energetic in good works. These persons are competent wit- 
 nesses to the character of the war. Their attitude in regard to 
 it is of singular interest to us. How has American Christianity 
 
10 ATTITUDE OF AMERICAN CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 comported itself in this sad strife ? If the Churches have pro- 
 nounced against the war, then may Ave with very considerable 
 confidence hold that the war is Avrong. If the Churches give 
 their deliberate and earnest sanction to the prosecution of the 
 war, then may those of us who condemn it, with propriety 
 inquire whether there is not something more in this question 
 than they as yet have been able to discover. 
 
 The Christianity of America gives forth no uncertain sound 
 upon this subject. It has, from the very beginning, supported 
 the war with a sorrowful, but deep determination, which no 
 reverses have even for a moment affected. The goodness of 
 America has thrown itself into this war with a resolution whose 
 depth has not yet been fathomed. Too surely the bad people 
 have been active in its promotion. But the enduring support 
 of the war comes from the serious, thoughtful, Avell-living 
 people. Some Northern politicians are opposed to it, but no 
 Northern Christians. A profound conviction that the war is 
 just and necessary pervades that class. The Northern Churches, 
 without any exception, believe that the preservation of the 
 national life demands the suppression of the rebellion. Their 
 missionaries to the heathen have looked at the war from great 
 distances, and therefore free from the control of popular im- 
 pulse or prejudice. The American missionaries are the very 
 flower of the Christian world. " I do not believe," said Lord 
 Shaftesbury, " that in the whole history of missions, in the 
 history of diplomacy, or in the history of any negotiations 
 carried on between man and man, we can find anything to 
 equal the wisdom, the soundness, and the pure evangelical truth 
 of the body of men who constitute the American Mission. I 
 have said it twenty times before, and I will say it again — they 
 are a marvellous combination of common sense and piety." 
 These American missionaries, so notable for their common 
 sense and piety, give unanimous and earnest support to the 
 war. They have proved tlicir devotion to the national cause 
 
COMPOSITION OF AMERICAN ARMY. 1 1 
 
 by the most impressive evidences. Many sons of missionaries 
 are now in the army : and many, it has been often remarked, 
 have fallen. Dr. Scudder — a member of a family most of 
 whom have been missionaries — took the earliest opportunity on 
 his return lately from India to declare himself a Union man; 
 " and one reason," he said, *' is because I am a religious man, 
 because I believe in Government and in God." Dr. Bradley, 
 a missionary in Siam, remitted three hundred dollars as his 
 contribution to the expenses of the war; and as he did so, he 
 said, " I regard the war, on our part, as one of the most 
 righteous that was ever waged; and I see the hand of God in 
 it so distinctly, and his merciful purposes for those millions of 
 our enslaved brethren at the South so gloriously fulfilling, that 
 my whole heart ascends to God in prayer continually for our 
 cause." 
 
 The fact must be accepted, whatever significance we may 
 choose to assign to it, that American Christianity, intelligent 
 and pure-hearted as we know it to be, has given to this war a 
 support of almost unexampled unanimity and earnestness. 
 
 If this statement is correct, the composition of the American 
 army will furnish evidence of its truth. If the American 
 Churches are perfectly in earnest in their support of the war, a 
 very large number of Church members will be found in the 
 ranks. That is the case to a very remarkable extent. 
 
 COMPOSITION OF THE FEDERAL ARMY. 
 
 It has been often said, and perhaps it is even believed by 
 some, that the American army is composed in great part of 
 foreigners, kidnapped or tempted by large bounties. No doubt, 
 there have been kidnapped men in the American army. Cer- 
 tainly there are foreigners in the American army. Red men 
 are there, and black men, and every variety of white, from the 
 Briton to the Chinaman. Of every kindred, and of every 
 
12 COMPOSITION OF AMERICAN ARMY. 
 
 tongue, they have fed with their Hves the flames of this con-' 
 suniing fire. And yet the amount of such aid has been wholly 
 insignificant. It is in violent conflict with truth, that foreign 
 mercenaries have played a part of any importance in the 
 war. Substantially, and almost literally, American citizens 
 have done this work. The ascertained proportions of native 
 and foreign soldiers are these : — 
 
 Native Americans ... .. 80 per cent. 
 
 Naturalized ... ... ... 15 ,, 
 
 P'oreigners ... ... ... 5 ,, 
 
 These proportions vary in different parts of the country. In 
 the East the native Americans are only 70 per cent. In the 
 West they are close upon 90 per cent. .But everywhere the 
 foreign element is present to a surprisingly small extent. It is 
 probably the fact that in none of the wars in which Britain has 
 been engaged was she so little beholden to foreign aid as 
 America is now/ 
 
 The American soldiers are in large measure a higher class of 
 men than ordinarily compose the military force of States. A 
 singularly large proportion are Christian men, who have offered 
 their lives to this war under a deep conviction that the cause 
 was worthy even of so great a sacrifice. It is not pretended 
 that the American army is an army of saints. It is not pre- 
 tended that Cromwell's principle of recruiting has been adhered 
 to. " I raised such men," said the Protector, " as had the fear 
 of God before them ; as made some conscience of what they 
 did." On the contrary, it is well known that much of the 
 ruffianism of large towns was swept into the ranks. The worst 
 characters in the land became soldiers ; and also the best. 
 From workshop and farm, from the bar, the pulpit, the exchange, 
 from homes of wealth and refinement, came forth, of their own 
 free will, the men who have been the strength of the Northern 
 armies. It is true beyond the possibility of doubt that a larger.. 
 
NORTHERN OFFICERS. 13 
 
 number of sincerely Christian men are fighting in this war than 
 ever fought in any war before. Scarcely a church or Sabbath- 
 school is Avitliout its representatives in the army. Some con- 
 gregations have given whole companies. Young Men's Christian 
 Associations have given regiments in one or two instances, and 
 large numbers in very many. The churches of America are 
 estimated to have sent to the war about one-seventh of their 
 male communicants. In many of the Western churches this 
 proportion has been largely exceeded. The story is told of a 
 pastor in one of the Western churches from whose congregation 
 fifty-one men volunteered into the army. They were all the 
 men capable of military service that his congregation contained. 
 They assembled to listen to his parting word of exhortation. 
 But the good man seeing they were all to go, determined to 
 accompany them. They elected him their captain, and under 
 his command marched off to the war. Many such cases have 
 occurred. Many of the smaller churches have been left without 
 pastors, and almost without men. There is an Illinois regi- 
 ment officered almost wholly by clergymen. The Bible classes 
 have furnished an immense number of recruits. John Henry of 
 Indiana was the teacher of such a class. Nearly all his pupils 
 enlisted. He felt responsible for them still. He said, " The 
 great Shepherd will demand them at my hands. I wish to give 
 a good account of my trust. I must care for the souls for 
 whom He cared." So he enlisted too. He fell in a skirmish 
 in Kentucky — stricken down by a wound which was plainly 
 fatal. A bullet had passed through his face, inflicting frightful 
 injuries. " I am happy," he murmured; " for when the Master 
 came he found me at my appointed work." And thus he died. 
 Among the officers as among the soldiers of the Northern 
 armies are many who " have the fear of God before them, and 
 make conscience of what they do." Unquestionably, many 
 bad men hold the American commission^men haughty of 
 heart and bloody of hand. Nevertheless it is the fact, that 
 
14 NORTHERN OFFICERS. 
 
 while the American officers as a body will bear comparison 
 with the officers of any army in Europe, there are very many 
 among them to remind us of those Christian heroes who with 
 Havelock shed undying lustre upon our Indian army. One or 
 two evidences of the character of these men may not be 
 uninteresting. 
 
 When General Anderson was about to raise his flag on Fort 
 Sumpter, he gathered his men around him and knelt down 
 while his chaplain offered up prayer to God for guidance and 
 protection. Of General Burnside it is known that " where he 
 pitches a tent, there he erects an altar." " It was my fortune," 
 says a New England clergyman, "to occupy the same room 
 with him in Washington, and every morning and evening we 
 used to kneel down together and pray for the blessing of God 
 on his solemn work." Commodore Foote, on one occasion 
 when a clergyman could not be found, preached to his naen 
 from the text, "Let not your heart be troubled;" and conducted 
 the devotional services with an earnestness which did not 
 surprise his hearers, because they knew it to be in perfect 
 accordance with his daily life. General Mitchell was accus- 
 tomed to speak to the men of his command about religion. 
 On one memorable occasion he addressed them, insisting " that 
 the highest duty of a soldier was to be a Christian ; that religion 
 heightened every enjoyment, and prepared him to discharge 
 better all his duties." General Howard issued an order in 
 regard to profane swearing — the besetting sin of the American 
 army. " I need not," he said, " remind any thinking man of 
 the vulgarity and meanness of the practice, nor speak of it as a 
 positive violation of God's law, but will simply appeal to the 
 good sense and better feelings of the members of my command, 
 and urge them, by all they hold dear, to abstain from insulting 
 Him whose protection they need." In all respects General 
 Howard is a noble specimen of a Christian soldier. He has 
 been in all the severest fighting in Virginia and Pennsylvania. 
 
NORTHERN OFFICERS. 15 
 
 He has proved his possession of the highest soldierly qualities 
 on many a bloody field. And this is what supports him in his 
 constant perils : " God has enabled me to have a clear con- 
 viction that should he take me away, I would be with him. 
 Not because I am good, or holy, or righteous ; but because I 
 have a Saviour who is able to save unto the uttermost. There- 
 fore I can go into the battle fearing no evil." 
 
 The history of Adjutant Stearns is finely illustrative of the 
 impulse under which the better portion of the American people 
 have acted. When the war broke out, Mr. Stearns was a 
 student in Amherst College, of which his father is president. 
 He was a young man of much strength of character, of pure 
 morals, and of deep religious convictions ; simple-hearted, 
 manly, generous, and full of all good promise. He had very 
 clear views of the causes and significance of the national crisis, 
 and the tremendous importance of its issues. From the first 
 he felt that he had a special call to fight, and possibly to die for 
 his country. He thought the country needed educated and 
 religious men for officers, who would care for the privates and 
 work hard to make them soldiers, and perhaps Christian soldiers. 
 His friends sought to dissuade him from his purpose, and they 
 were able for a little to delay its execution. But when the 
 disastrous tidings of Bull Run were received, his conviction 
 became irresistible that it was his duty to enlist His friends 
 withdrew their opposition. With no boyish love of adventure, 
 but compelled by a solemn, high-toned, patriotic enthusiasm, 
 he went off to the war, willing to serve either as private soldier 
 or as officer, and calmly prepared to lay down his life for his 
 country. He received a commission, and applied himself with 
 vigour an^ effect to the work of drilling the untrained men who 
 flocked to the national standard. His career was full of hope, 
 but it was early closed. He fell, mortally wounded, at the battle 
 of Newbern, when he had been scarcely a year in the service. 
 
 The first man who volunteered in the State of Ohio was Mr. 
 
 9 
 
i6 
 
 NORTHERN OFFICERS. 
 
 Andrews, President of Kenyon College. He had no taste 
 whatever for military life. He was a man of peace and quiet- 
 ness. He was moved entirely by the consideration of duty to 
 his country in the time of her great trial. He said he had 
 carefully and solemnly, before God, inquired what was the path 
 of duty for him, and this was the result. His career was sadly 
 brief He died of disease a few months after he joined the 
 army. 
 
 Lieutenant Edgar Newcombe had been trained with a view 
 to the ministry in the Grammar School of Boston and the 
 neighbouring College of Cambridge. His health failed, and he 
 went to travel in Europe. Soon after his return the rebellion 
 broke out. He felt constrained to aid in its suppression. The 
 service was positively distasteful to him. It was violently 
 opposed to all the impulses of his peaceful and loving nature. 
 But he never doubted that his duty to God and to his country 
 left him no choice. He enlisted as a common soldier. He 
 "made conscience of his work," as men who enlist under 
 constraint of such motives always do ; and he soon received 
 promotion. He distinguished himself as a soldier. " No 
 braver officer or man ever stood upon a battle-field," was the 
 testimony borne regarding him by a superior officer. He was 
 no less faithful and active as a Christian. He frequently 
 preached, and held prayer-meetings, and missed no opportunity 
 of influencing to good the soldiers around him. At Fredericks- 
 burg he was struck by a shot which tore his limbs in pieces. 
 He lingered for some days suffering intensely, but tranquil and 
 happy. " It never seemed before to me," he said, " so great 
 and noble a thing to die." His last message to his parents was, 
 that he could not die in a holier cause. 
 
 Instances of self-devotion similar to these could be multiplied 
 indefinitely. The records of this war are full of them. America 
 has developed an unexpected opulence of heroism in feeling 
 and in deed. For this sacrifice of every personal interest in 
 
THE SANITARY COMMISSION, 17 
 
 obedience to the impulse of patriotism is in the loftiest sense 
 heroic. From the annals of these bitter years an ennobling 
 influence will reach down through all the succeeding periods of 
 American history. 
 
 The national sympathy with an army composed in consider- 
 able part of elements such as these, is necessarily deep and 
 close beyond all example. No army ever expressed more 
 perfectly the national mind. These were not men hired to 
 fight in any quarrel which might occur. They had offered 
 themselves for this special service. They became soldiers 
 because of their deep participation in the national resolve. 
 The American people were of one mind in their purpose to put 
 down a most wicked rebellion, and to maintain a Government 
 which they deemed the best in the world. The army was 
 merely that section of themselves upon whom circumstances 
 or their own choice had laid the burden of fighting for the 
 common cause. In a very uncommon degree they became the 
 care of those who remained at home. The same enthusiasm 
 which impelled some to fight, impelled others to labour for 
 their welfare. Instantaneously there sprang up thickly all over 
 the country associations which expressed this passionate desire. 
 Every village had its little organization. Women spent their 
 days in churches or private houses, preparing lint and bandages. 
 In every farm-house and cottage was " a good grandmoth'er 
 knitting socks, or a child making a pin-cushion." The village 
 society gathered up the gifts which poured freely in, and trans- 
 mitted them as best it could, in the confusion, to the regiment 
 in whose comfort it felt the warmest interest. 
 
 UNITED STATES' SANITARY COMMISSION 
 
 The United States' Sanitary Commission is the crystal- 
 lization into one splendid mass of those innumerable little 
 associations whose earnest but imperfectly organized efforts 
 
l8 THE SANITARY COMMISSION. 
 
 sought the good of the soldier. The women of New York may 
 be regarded as the founders of this noble society. At the 
 beginning of the war, a great Central Women's Association had 
 been formed in New York. Soon many of the village associa- 
 tions desired to avail themselves of the better organization of 
 this central institution, and were contented to become its 
 tributaries. The central association was rapidly becoming a 
 great power. With a consciousness of the vast authority for 
 good which was intrusted to them, there happily visited the 
 New York sisterhood an apprehension of ill-directed effort. 
 They wisely resolved to take advice. They united themselves 
 for that purpose Avith two medical associations whose object 
 was to benefit the military hospitals. Jointly these three bodies 
 appointed delegates who proceeded to Washington to urge that 
 Government should, by means of a Commission, consider the 
 best plans for methodizing the active but undirected benevolence 
 of the people towards the army, and investigate the general 
 subject of the prevention of sickness and suffering among the 
 troops. " It must be well known," represented these delegates 
 to the Secretary at War, "that several such Commissions yt-Z/fTcvrf 
 the Crimean and Indian Wars. The civilization and humanity 
 of the age and of the American people demand that such a 
 Commission should /;Ym/d' our second War of Independence — 
 more sacred than the first. We wish to prevent the evils that 
 England and France could only investigate and deplore. This 
 war ought to be waged in a spirit of the highest intelligence and 
 tenderness for the health, comfort, and safety of our brave 
 troops." These words bear date the i8th May, 1861. The 
 war cannot be said to have actually commenced. America had 
 no experience of the evils which befall a neglected army. 
 Spoken before a single drop of blood was shed, these suggestions 
 are evidence of a far-reaching, humane sagacity, to which it is 
 difficult indeed to find any parallel in the history of armies. 
 In a itw days the Government order for the organization of 
 
SANITAR V rRECA UTIONS. 1 9 
 
 the Sanitary Commission was issued. The general object of 
 the Commission was, " to bring to bear upon the health, com- 
 fort, and morale of our troops, the fullest and ripest teachings of 
 sanitary science in its application to military life." The Com- 
 mission was composed of twenty-two members. Its President 
 was the Rev. Dr. Bellows, who fittingly represented the philan- 
 thropy of the country. Its chief executive officer was Mr. 
 Olmsted, favourably known in Europe by various writings upon 
 the condition and resources of the Southern States. The other 
 members of the Commission were men of science, experienced 
 miHtary officers, medical men, and merchants of proved adminis- 
 trative capacity. Instantly they and the " experts" whom they 
 called to their aid hastened to the field of observation and 
 inquiry among the gathering forces on the Potomac and the 
 Mississippi. Almost as soon as there was a camp there were 
 sanitary inspectors to show how a camp should be pitched. 
 The choice of a site was regulated by scientific principles. 
 Localities suggestive of malaria were scrupulously shunned. 
 Drainage was strictly enforced. Care was taken to have pure 
 water in abundance. The army cooking was well seen to, and 
 every possible means used to secure the most wholesome food 
 for the troops. The clothing of the men was elaborately dis- 
 cussed. Every precaution was used to avert those, camp 
 diseases which so cruelly impair the strength of armies. The 
 country was willing to supply all the life which was needed to 
 put down the rebeUion; but while life was to be ungrudgingly 
 given in this cause, it was not to be wasted. It was not 
 humanity alone which was the motive professed by the Com- 
 mission; it was also the wish to husband the resources of the 
 people. Had the mortality of the American army been equal 
 to that of most other armies, the consumption of human life 
 would have been too horrible, and the enterprise must have been 
 abandoned as one surpassing the strength of the people who 
 had undertaken it. 
 
ao SANITARY RESEARCHES. 
 
 The first American armies stood peculiarly in need of such care 
 as sanitary guardians could supply. They were not men gathered 
 mainly from the open-air occupations, with whom exposure and 
 hardship are familiar. They were still more men of in-door 
 lives. They were lawyers, doctors, clerks, students, mechanics, 
 as well as farmers. They were men accustomed to regularity 
 of life and plentiful home-comforts. They knew the care of 
 mothers and sisters and wives. They used varied and well- 
 cooked food. Many of them were youths unused to toil, and 
 little able to endure it. It was plain that if these men were 
 subjected to the ordinary fatigues of the field, and the ordinary 
 hardships of the camp, they must perish in crowds, from exhaus- 
 tion and the diseases generated by their new mode, of life. 
 Many of them actually did so at the outset. That this waste 
 of life, never overwhelming, was soon controlled, and ultimately 
 almost stopped, was owing to the wise and timely precautions 
 of the American people. 
 
 Scientific research into all questions connected with the 
 health of armies occupied the Commission from its establish- 
 ment, and is still one of the great departments of its work. 
 There has scarcely ever been presented so rich a field for inves- 
 tigations of this description. Many armies were at work in 
 regions widely apart, and widely dissimilar in all conditions of 
 climate and local circumstance. The very diseases which pre- 
 vailed were different. Diseases unknown among European 
 soldiers made their appearance in some of the American armies. 
 The Sanitary Commission established a department for the col- 
 lection of vital statistics. An enormous accumulation of these 
 has already been formed. Their results have not yet been pub- 
 lished, and will not be till the war is ended, and the collection 
 thus completed. Meanwhile we know that a work is being 
 carried regularly forward which will prove of incalculable benefit, 
 not to American armies only, but to all armies. Medical 
 science is being enriched by this careful gathering up of facts. 
 
SANITARY INSPECTORS. 21 
 
 These results of American experience will prove an inexhaust- 
 ible treasure to scientific discoverers in all lands. 
 
 The Sanitary Inspector has been an invariable attendant 
 upon all American camps. He is qualified for his office by 
 medical experience and recognised capacity. His business is 
 to detect everything injurious to the health of the troops, and 
 bring it under the notice of the regimental surgeon or com- 
 manding officer. He is instructed to do so respectfully, care- 
 fully observing all militaiy etiquette. Should any officer refuse 
 to give effect to his remonstrance, he is to apprise the Com- 
 mission of such refusal. Means will be found to remove all 
 obstructions which unreasonable men place in the way. The 
 health of the soldiers who are saving the national life is the 
 one thing to be regarded. And, in supplement of the inspector's 
 work, the Commission undertake to supply the surgeons with 
 such professional reading as is needful for them. Government 
 supplies standard medical works ; but the Commission has 
 published a great many short treatises on army diseases, which 
 have proved eminently helpful to the surgeons. 
 
 The wise forethought of the Commission was shown very 
 notably in their concern about the provision which was to be 
 made for the disabled soldiers. So early as the autumn 
 of 1862 this subject engaged attention. " If the war con- 
 tinue a year longer," said the Commission, " not less than a 
 hundred thousand men of impaired vigour, maimed or broken 
 in body or spirit, will be thrown on the country. Add to this 
 another hundred thousand men demoralized for civil life by 
 military habits, and it is easy to see what a trial to the order, 
 industry, and security of society, there is in store for us." It 
 was needful to begin the consideration of this great question in 
 good time ; and the Commission began at once. They sent 
 a competent person to Europe, to observe the working of the 
 various military invalid systems. The information so collected 
 was published. It was still felt that additional light was required. 
 
2 2 SANITAR V SUPPLIES. 
 
 It was resolved to establish experimental Sanitaria for certain 
 classes of disabled soldiers. Armed with the results of these 
 experiments, and of all European experience, the Commission 
 will be prepared, when the necessity arises, to propose an 
 invalid system suited to the circumstances of the country, and 
 worthy of the greatness of the interests involved. 
 
 By sanitary investigations, and by the diffusion of sanitary 
 knowledge throughout the army, the Commission hoped to 
 save life, and thus uphold the national cause. Important as 
 this part of the work has proved, it is, however, only a small 
 part. No sooner was the Commission organized than it began 
 to attract to itself those multitudinous Soldiers' Aid Societies 
 and Village Sewing Circles by which all Americans who did not 
 fight were eager to express their love for those who did. At 
 first it had been attempted to send the gifts from each State to 
 the regiments of that State; but this became intolerably trouble- 
 some ; — and, besides, it was now the disposition of the Northern 
 people to forget the State, and remember only the Nation ; for 
 had not the exalting of the State to the disparagement of the 
 Nation been their undoing] One by one the smaller societies 
 wisely resolved to merge themselves in the great national insti- 
 tution. The Sanitary Commission has nobly reaUzed the dream 
 of its founders, in " organizing the benevolence of the country 
 towards the army." During the first two years of its existence 
 it received, for the soldiers, gifts which were valued at nearly 
 eight millions of dollars. It has been truly said that the Com- 
 mission has " modified history," by its wise use of these enor- 
 mous supplies. 
 
 Wherever there is an American army, there inevitably is a 
 depot of the Sanitary Commission. At some convenient centre 
 is the stationary depot. Moving with the army in all its move- 
 ments is the '' flying depot" — a line of two-horse waggons laden 
 with stores. Everything which soldiers in health or in sickness 
 can re<|iurc is there. Every variety of under-clothing, bedding. 
 
SANITARY SUPPLIES. 23 
 
 towels and handkerchiefs, vegetables, condensed milk, pickles, 
 crutches, ice, dressing-gowns, fans to soothe the wounded in the 
 burning heat of summer, bandages and pads, sponges, eau-de- 
 Cologne, mosquito-netting, and a hundred things besides, issue 
 in profuse supply from those inexhaustible waggons the moment 
 they are required. The Commission does not relieve Govern- 
 ment from the performance of any part of its duty to the soldiers. 
 Its function is purely supplemental. But it supphes comforts 
 which Government- is never expected to provide, which yet the 
 American people wish that their soldiers should enjoy. And, 
 besides, Government dispenses according to rules, while the 
 soldier " wants according to his circumstances." On many 
 occasions these rules and these wants harmonize ill. Especially 
 is this the case after such an irregular transaction as a battle, 
 with its abnormal crowds of wounded and suffering men. On 
 all such occasions the Commission steps in and bridges the 
 chasm of want. The surgeon, in despair because some official 
 blunder has bereft him of hospital suppUes, turns, and never in 
 vain, to the waggons of the Sanitary Commission. The soldier 
 who has lost his blanket or great-coat, and who might become 
 a non-effective in consequence of cold before official rules would 
 permit him to have another, is promptly supplied at those 
 magical waggons. At the close of a hard fight or a toilsome 
 march the soldiers may discover that the official provision for 
 their wants is yet at some distance; but the waggons and huge 
 wheeled caldrons of the Sanitary Commission are always within 
 reach. 
 
 The Commission taught, as men having authority, that camps 
 must be drained, that the soldiers must be suitably clothed and 
 lodged, that their food must be varied and well cooked ; but 
 they were not content with teaching. It was not enough for 
 them to say, " Be ye warmed and fed." They themselves sup- 
 plied the articles whose use they recommended. No official 
 regulations fettered their free beneficence. They waited for no 
 
24 THE WAR WITH SCURVY, 
 
 order. They were there to relieve wants ; and the discovery of 
 a want was their authority to relieve it. Their ample stores 
 dispensed in profusion everything fitted to promote the comfort 
 and uphold the efficiency of the soldiers. 
 
 The Sanitary Commission has waged an arduous and at 
 length a successful war with Scurvy. The coming of that 
 dreaded enemy was early foreseen, and great efforts made to 
 avert it. Adequate supplies of fresh vegetables could not, how- 
 ever, be obtained. The Commission raised loudly the cry, 
 "Potatoes and onions for the whole army!" "Vegetables, 
 humanity, and patriotism," was their motto. They urged upon 
 the people that every barrel of potatoes was as good to the army 
 as a soldier, for it saved the life of one. They besought every 
 man who had a patch of ground, to put in some vegetables for 
 the army. It was pointed out to young ladies, who were prone 
 to send handsomely wrought slippers and book-marks to their 
 lovers in the army, that precious as these gifts were, fresh vege- 
 tables were greatly preferred. Enormous vegetable donations 
 poured in upon the Commission, in prompt response to its 
 appeals. In supplement of these, the Commission has fre- 
 quently swept the Western markets of every vegetable article 
 offered for sale. Finally, the Commission established vast 
 gardens of its own here and there over the Union. For a long 
 time the American army has had ample supply of vegetables, 
 and " the demon of scurvy" has been conclusively hunted from 
 the camp. 
 
 " Hospitals," said a distinguished army surgeon of the last 
 generation, " are among the chief causes of mortality in armies." 
 As they have been regulated in most armies, they form a sure 
 provision for the spread of all infectious diseases. The soldier 
 who goes in to get cured of some slight wound or illness, comes 
 out to sicken and die of smallpox or fever. The mortality in 
 an ill-regulated military hospital is horrible. At one period 
 during the Crimean War nearly one-half of the sick died in the 
 
xMILITAR Y HOSPITALS. 2 5 
 
 hospital. A little later, when sanitary precautions were used, 
 the mortality sunk at once to two or three per cent. Here was 
 a field for American sanitary reformers. The hospital popu- 
 lation was enormous. The medical department had frequently 
 under its care one hundred thousand men. In and around 
 Washington there were at one period thirty thousand sick and 
 wounded men in hospital. Before the opening of the present 
 campaign, it was believed that a million of men had passed 
 through the hospitals. The success or failure of the national 
 cause turned upon the good or bad management of the medical 
 department. If the hospitals were to be fever dens, where half 
 the sick men died, and the other half crawled forth to infect 
 the camp, the suppression of the rebellion was obviously impos- 
 sible. During the earher months of the war the condition of 
 the hospitals furnished occasion of the gravest solicitude. We 
 have no statistics to illustrate their mismanagement ; but the 
 dark intimation that nothing so bad existed even in the Crimea 
 is enough. 
 
 The Sanitary Commission gave early and earnest heed to 
 this vitally important subject. Medical men of reputation 
 were invited to take part in the systematic inspection of hos- 
 pitals. The buildings used were then old hotels, churches, 
 school-rooms, — anything that could be got. The inspectors 
 recommended the abandonment of these unsuitable structures, 
 and the erection of buildings ada.pted to hospital purposes. 
 Government hearkened to their counsel. In the autumn of 
 1862 a large number of extensive pavilion hospitals were erected. 
 Immense energy was put forth. In a surprisingly short time 
 buildings were completed which contained in the aggregate 
 seventy thousand beds. There is now ample and excellent 
 hospital accommodation for all the armies of the Union. 
 
 Every possible measure has been adopted to secure the com- 
 fort of the sick. Their first great want was hospital clothing. 
 The poor fellows came in with no dress but that in which they 
 
26 RAIL WA Y AMB U LANCES. 
 
 had marched and fought and slept for weeks. Government had 
 nothing more suitable to offer them. But the women of America 
 had thought of all that, and the ubiquitous Sanitary Commission 
 was there to clothe the sick man in the dress befitting an invalid. 
 Infinite care was bestowed upon his diet. Ample supplies of 
 vegetables were provided ; and lest their freshness should be 
 tarnished by the distance they had to travel, they were conveyed 
 in "refrigerating cars," lined with zinc and with ice. Every 
 delicacy to tempt the languid appetite was at hand. The list 
 of articles regularly supplied Jto the hospitals includes every- 
 thing which an invalid civilian of the middle class would be at 
 all likely to use. 
 
 The wounded have often to be conveyed great distances to 
 hospital. At first the only thing that could be done was to lay 
 them down, side by side, on the floor of cattle-trucks or 
 freight-cars. The agony inflicted was unendurable, and the 
 injury sustained was often fatal. The wounded came in from 
 the battle of Fair Oaks packed in this way. It was Virginia 
 mid-summer — still, and intensely hot. When the train reached 
 its destination, many of the men were dead. The living and 
 the dead lay mingled together. An agent of the Sanitary 
 Commission witnessed the horrid scene. Deeply moved, he 
 applied his mind to the devising of a Railway Ambulance. The 
 wounded American is now conveyed to hospital in a carriage 
 appropriate to his circumstances. The springs are so contrived 
 as to give almost perfect smoothness. There is a device which 
 eflectually prevents jerking when the train stops or is put in 
 motion. The carriages are grooved to run upon different 
 gauges, and save the pain of needless transfers. The beds are 
 suspended by strong india-rubber bands, and receive a gentle 
 motion which ordinarily lulls the patient to sleep. There are 
 reclining seats for those who are able to sit up, a sofa for the 
 doctor, a kitchen, and an abundant supply of such stores as 
 the wounded may require. Wlien the journey is accomplished 
 
RELIEF STA TIONS. 2 7 
 
 the beds may be at once unslung, and the patient carried to 
 his place in the hospital without inconvenience. Mechanically 
 considered, all this reflects credit upon the Americans. As an 
 exhibition of tenderness towards human suffering, of grateful, 
 affectionate concern for those who have been disabled in the 
 national service, it is beautiful and admirable in the highest 
 degree. 
 
 In many ways besides these does the Sanitary Commission 
 make itself felt as a blessing to the soldier. There is a debate- 
 able ground between the hospital and active service, the occu- 
 pants of which urgently require help. Men are discharged as 
 unfit for service; or they are allowed to go home on sick leave; 
 or they are sick, but yet not sick enough to have a claim on 
 the hospital. For men of these and similar classes the Com- 
 mission keeps open door. At all the great military centres. 
 Relief Stations have been estabHshed. The men are received 
 there, and the stations become " the gateway towards home " 
 for them. If they" are not well enough to go home, they are 
 nursed. If they are able to travel, they are helped upon their 
 journey. When their state of health requires, an agent is sent 
 to accompany them to their homes. Special care is taken to 
 guard the discharged soldier from falling into the hands of 
 improper companions.- His arrears of pay are collected for 
 him. Formerly it happened that sick men, waiting in the dense 
 crowd and blazing sunshine at the paymaster's door, actually 
 died of exhaustion. Now the Commission undertakes the 
 arrangement of their pecuniary relations with the Government. 
 Sometimes a good soldier is disgraced unjustly. He has been 
 separated from his regiment, for example, and circumstances 
 favour the suspicion that he intended desertion. He does not 
 know how to get redress. But he brings the story of his wrongs 
 to the Sanitary Commission, by whom it is examined. If the 
 case is found to be as represented, the needful exculpatory 
 evidence is laid before the military authorities. In this way 
 
28 
 
 HOSPITAL DIRECrORY-DEATH RECORDS. 
 
 many good and faithful soldiers have been saved from unde- 
 served shame. Detectives are regularly employed to discover 
 and bring to justice the sharpers and gamblers who hang about 
 the precincts of a camp, and prey upon the soldiers. When a 
 soldier falls sick and is sent to hospital, he disappears suddenly 
 from the knowledge of his relations at home. He cannot write 
 to them ; he cannot be found by the postman who brings their 
 letters to him. To anxious relatives this* is naturally sugges- 
 rive of the very worst. But they can find no way either to 
 confirm or dispel their fears. They must remain long in 
 miserable uncertainty ; or, rather, they must liave done so at 
 one time-but that time is past. The Sanitary Commission 
 has established an Hospital Directory. The name of every 
 soldier who enters the hospital is duly inscribed on their 
 records. His whole hospital history is preserved, for the satis- 
 faction of his friends. They have only to write to the Com- 
 mission. They learn, in course of post, when the man became 
 ill, what ailed him, whether he has died or recovered ; and if 
 the latter, where he is now. Often it is sad news the Com- 
 mission has to give. An old man comes in from a distant 
 State to visit his boy in the hospital, and while the clerk looks 
 out the name the stranger talks pleasantly about his son, and 
 about the little presents which the mother and sisters in the 
 far-off home have sent to cheer his sickness. Alas ! the boy 
 died that very morning. But oftener the news is good. Many 
 thousands of fathers and mothers have had their fears turned 
 into rejoicing by the letter which assured them that their lost 
 son was safe in hospital, and doing well. 
 
 Yet one step further has the care of the Sanitary Commission 
 followed the American soldier. The soldier who lives is not 
 alone the object of regard. He who has died for his country 
 must not be forgotten. A scheme of Death Records was pre- 
 pared by the Commission, and adopted by the Government. 
 A register is kept of the dead soldiers name, his home-relations. 
 
SANITARY COMMISSION AND THE NEGROES. 29 
 
 his wounds or sickness, his dying requests, his place of burial. A 
 neatlyinscribed memorial tablet marks the place of his rest. Long 
 lines of these tablets now show where a battle has been fought 
 or an hospital cemetery established, and bear touching witness 
 to the evils which have been wrought by this great rebellion. 
 
 The treatment of the Negroes by the Sanitary Commission is 
 a point to which attention is naturally turned. We all know 
 how guilty the North has been in respect of their coloured 
 brothers. We know how the interests of the enslaved race 
 were sacrificed, in the vain hope of pleasing the insensate and 
 insatiate South. We know, too, how intolerant Northern 
 people Avere of the presence of the negro — how they chased 
 him from their hotels, from their shops, from their public con- 
 veyances. It is not necessary we should forget these things. 
 But if the feeling under which they were committed has under- 
 gone a marvellous change ; if in the sentiment of the North 
 the negro is rapidly assuming his rightful place, neither should 
 we keep our minds shut to this so beneficial revolution. The 
 history of Northern opinion did not close with the passing of 
 the Fugitive Slave Bill. The America of to-day looks upon 
 that measure with nearly as much wonder and abhorrence as 
 Britain does. One early result of the war was a marked 
 reaction from the prevalent dislike of the negro. It was said 
 the negro could not fight. He has disproved that calumny on 
 many a bloody field. It was said he would never work unless 
 under compulsion. He has shown himself enamoured of 
 voluntary labour, and of the wages which are its reward. On 
 the Carolina and Florida coasts; in the department of the 
 Gulf — wherever cotton lands have been repossessed by the 
 Union, they are -worked by free negro farmers and labourers, 
 far more effectively than they ever were by the debased 
 "chivalry" of the South. The negro has had an opportunity 
 of proving what he is fit for, and the repentant North is learn- 
 ing to appreciate him at his true value. 
 
30 FEDERAL PRISONERS IN THE SOUTH. 
 
 'J'he reports of the Sanitary Commission furnish the most 
 expressive evidence of the greatness of this change. It is 
 scarcely ever told us whether the soldiers ministered to by the 
 Commission are black or white. Distinction of colour is 
 wholly unregarded. Negro soldiers and white soldiers, as they 
 fight in the same cause, so, when wounded, they occupy the 
 same hospital, and enjoy the same tender care. Indeed, there 
 is sometimes a good-humoured complaint by the white soldiers 
 that the blacks are better cared for in hospital than they are. 
 Many of the ladies who • serve in the hospitals are eager 
 Abolitionists, and upon their kindness a negro, wounded in the 
 service of the country which has used him so harshly, has 
 claims of surpassing strength. For the first time in his history 
 the black man is permitted to meet the white man on equal 
 terms. The old and lamentable repugnance to the negro race 
 cannot be discovered in the Federal army. 
 
 TREATMENT OF PRISONERS— NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 The Federal soldiers who have fallen into the enemy's hands, 
 and become the occupants of his terrible prisons, have received 
 many welcome evidences that their friends in the North did 
 not forget them. The Northern captive ordinarily reaches his 
 prison in a sadly dilapidated condition. Some ill-clad rebel 
 has coveted and taken his coat. His shoes and stockings have 
 proved an irresistible temptation to another hero who had been 
 campaigning almost barefooted. His money is invariably taken 
 from him by the prison officials. He is helpless and forlorn, 
 with no visible reliance excepting upon those whose tender 
 mercies have proved cruel indeed. Knowing the sad condition 
 of their captive soldiers, both the Sanitary and Christian Com- 
 missions obtained from the Rebel Government permission to 
 come to their aid. Profuse supplies have been sent south, of 
 clothing, bedding, food and comforts for the sick. Many of 
 
CRUELTY OF THE SOUTHERN GOVERNMENT. 31 
 
 these articles were honourably delivered to those for whom they 
 were intended. Many more of them, it is certainly known, 
 were dishonourably intercepted. 
 
 The South is an admirable expositor of the amenities of 
 war. Her principles are so excellent that many people take 
 her practice for granted. General Butler once issued an order 
 which was meant to suppress the insults offered to his army 
 by Southern ladies, and whicli, it is known, did so without the 
 smallest inconvenience to any one. The chivalrous and tender- 
 hearted South stood aghast at the cruelty. General Sherman, 
 under pressure of military necessity, ordered the population of 
 a Southern town to leave their dwellings and go elsewhere. 
 The South made a solemn appeal to History, to brand as it 
 deserved the unparalleled atrocity. All the while how has 
 the South herself acted % The question brings us face to face 
 with transactions which have no counterpart in the history of 
 Christian States. Among the multitude of horrifying topics 
 which the records of war present, there is nothing worse — 
 happily there is nothing so bad — as the treatment which the 
 South has bestowed upon her prisoners. It was possible only 
 among a people reduced to a half-savage condition by the 
 brutalizing influence of slavery. And it is in perfect haraiony 
 with the character of a Government whose foundations are 
 avowedly laid upon the doctrine that slavery is the natural 
 condition of the negro. 
 
 If the care taken of the Federal soldier illustrates the spirit 
 in which the North is fighting, the treatment of prisoners 
 illustrates as faithfully the spirit of the South. It would be a 
 satisfaction even to doubt the evidence on which such horrors 
 are presented to us. Unhappily, that is impossible. The 
 comfort of doubt can be enjoyed only by those facile students 
 of history who, without inquiry, reject every allegation detri- 
 mental to the South. 
 
 At Andersonville, in Georgia, there is a large prison for 
 
32 THE STOCKADE PRISON AT ANDERSONVILLE. 
 
 Federal soldiers. It is not a building, but a stockade. An 
 area of twenty-five acres is surrounded by a wall about twenty 
 feet high, formed of the upright trunks of trees. Near the top 
 are small platforms, where the guards are stationed. Within 
 this stockade about thirty thousand prisoners were confined. 
 In the centre of the enclosure is a swamp, into which a small 
 stream flows, laden with the impurities of a rebel camp pitched 
 upon its banks. The prisoners have room to move about, but 
 scarcely without jostling. There was no drainage, and the only 
 water which was available for drinking or cooking was take^ 
 from the filthy little stream. The men filtered it as best they 
 could, through the remains of their shirts and blouses. There 
 was no shelter, by night or by day, from the sun or rain. The 
 men slept upon the ground. They had been plundered of 
 their blankets, and in some cases of their shirts and drawers. 
 Few of them had shoes. Most of them were without clothing 
 which sufficed for the decent covering of the person ; and many 
 were almost literally naked. The food supplied was barely 
 sufficient to sustain life, and utterly inadequate to preserve 
 health. The prisoners endured continually the agony of 
 hunger. They ate gladly the flesh of rats ; and once a dog, 
 which had strayed into the enclosure, was eagerly devoured. 
 Diseases bred of starvation made fearful havoc among them. 
 For a long time the deaths averaged one hundred and thirty 
 daily. The men sunk into despondency, and many into idiocy. 
 The loathsome cruelty of the Slave-owning Confederacy had laid 
 upon them a burden of misery too great for humanity to endure. 
 Many sought refuge in suicide — a refuge easily found. Inside 
 the wall of the stockade, and about twenty feet distant from it, 
 there ran a slight railing. Within that railing was the vast 
 crowd of prisoners. Between it and the wall there lay perhaps 
 one or two dead bodies, but no living man walked there. 
 What is that mysterious fence, and wherefore the reluctance to 
 enter the space which it marks off? It is the well-known 
 
THE STOCKADE PRISON OF BELLE ISLE. 33 
 
 " dead-line " — the fiendish contribution of the South to the 
 economy of mihtary prisons. The man who puts hand or foot 
 beyond that Hne, dies on the instant by the bullet of the guard. 
 One poor fellow — his name was Roberts — who had just been 
 captured from Sherman's army, was once trying to wash his 
 face in the stream, near the "dead-hne" railing. His foot 
 slipped on the clayey bottom, and he fell with his head outside 
 the fatal border. His comrades shouted their eager warning. 
 But it came too late. The bullet of the guard sped forth, and 
 poor Roberts rose no more. Two such deaths occurred daily 
 on the average. For the most, the slain men were those 
 who, in despair or madness, had crossed the line to find relief 
 in death from intolerable suifering. For many months these 
 unutterable barbarities were perpetrated. At length came the 
 pestilence — the sure result of filth, starvation, and exposure. 
 Eleven thousand dead men were thrown, uncoffined, into 
 trenches dug outside the stockade. The prison was broken up, 
 and the prisoners confined elsewhere. 
 
 Andersonville is away in a remote part of the Confederacy, 
 and some may be disposed to hope that the Government were 
 ignorant of its horrors. But horrors such as these, and even 
 worse, have been enacted for years under the walls of Richmond 
 — literally within the view of the members of the Confederate 
 Government. Belle Isle is a small island in the James River, 
 close beside the rebel capital. Here is an enclosure surrounded 
 by earthwork and ditch, and occupied by ten or twelve thousand 
 prisoners. Its area gives to each man a space of three feet by 
 nine. There are a few ragged tents, but the great mass of 
 prisoners have no shelter whatever. In a country of forests 
 there was no want of timber, and the prisoners could easily have 
 sheltered themselves had they been allowed. Last winter wa? 
 one of the hardest ever experienced in the South. The ther- 
 mometer was down to zero at Richmond. Snow lay deep on 
 the ground. As Jefferson Davis moved about the streets of his 
 
34 THE LIBBY PRISON. 
 
 capital he could see the place where ten thousand brave men 
 were subjected by his orders to all the agonies which cold and 
 hunger can inflict. It is terrible to read of the sufferings of 
 these men. The food supplied was utterly insufficient in 
 quantity, and absolutely vile in quality. They crowded together 
 at night, taking turns as to who should have the outside. In 
 the morning some members of these little circles were always 
 found frozen to death. Some dug holes in the sand, and crept 
 into them to sleep. All through the night crowds of them were 
 heard running up and down, to keep themselves from perishing 
 of cold. A few months ago there was an exchange of prisoners, 
 and the survivors of the winter on Belle Isle were brought to 
 the North. The Sanitary Commission sent a special agent to 
 see to their comfort. That gentleman states that he has wit- 
 nessed much suffering on battle-field and in hospital, but any- 
 thing so sad and deplorable as the condition of these exchanged 
 prisoners he could not have imagined. Most of them were 
 living skeletons. Many were almost naked. All were frightfully 
 filthy and covered with vermin. Many had lost their reason. 
 Many came on board with their feet partially amputated by 
 frost. In one case a frozen foot fell off when the man was lifted. 
 Without exception they were ravenous for food. Hundreds 
 were sick of diseases engendered by want, and a good many 
 died on the way home. The post-mortem examination of their 
 bodies left no room to doubt that death had been caused by 
 exposure and want of food. 
 
 The Federal officers are confined in the Libby Prison in 
 Richmond. The Inspector of that prison was formerly a negro 
 whipper; — a craftsman largely employed and of considerable 
 importance in the South. The rations supplied to the officers 
 were very insufficient, and those who did not receive supplies 
 from friends in the North suffered much from hunger. The 
 prison was crowded and unutterably filthy. An imaginary line 
 three feet from the window was the "dead line" of that prison. 
 
TREATMENT OF PRISONERS BY THE NOR'TH. 35 
 
 The sentry fired at random at any man who seemed to come 
 too near the window. Scarcely a day passed without murder 
 being thus committed. 
 
 In this way do the chiefs of the new Slave-owning Republic 
 treat the unfortunate men who fall into their power. It is 
 horrifying, but it is not surprising. All the Southern chivalry 
 owned large numbers of human beings. With their knowledge 
 and full sanction, and for their profit, these slaves — women as 
 well as men — were constantly flogged and otherwise brutally 
 oppressed at the pleasure of a brutal overseer. Was it reason- 
 able to expect that men who have lived all their days upon the 
 gains of such a system as that, should be gentle, humane, con- 
 siderate of others % These men have palmed themselves off 
 upon befooled England as high-spirited Christian gentlemen. 
 It was impossible they should be so. Do men gather figs of 
 thistles? Are Christian gentlemen produced under a social 
 system which sanctions atrocious cruelty for the sake of a little 
 ignominious gain % The supposition is foolish. Whatever cheap 
 external graces the Southern chivalry may possess, they are 
 savages in their heart. 
 
 The most striking contrast which it is possible to present to 
 the treatment of Federal prisoners in the South, is the treatment 
 of Confederate prisoners in the North. This war is a conflict 
 between a higher and a lower form of civilization- — unequally 
 yoked together. Whoso wishes to know, surely, which is the 
 nobler of the two, let him, with a just scorn of all unsupported 
 assertion, search honestly into the treatment of the prisoners. 
 The evidence is easily accessible ; it is superfluously ample ; it 
 is convincing in a degree which renders rational doubt a mere 
 impossibihty. 
 
 Fort Delaware is a prison which has been a good deal 
 maligned. It was suddenly peopled, after the battle of Get- 
 tysburg, with eleven thousand prisoners. There were no pre- 
 parations made for the reception of such a mass of men. The 
 
3 6 FOR T DELA WA RE. 
 
 hospital accommodation, in particular, was insufficient. Orders 
 were instantly given for a new hospital, and men worked night 
 and day till it was finished. At first the sickness and mortality 
 were painfiiUy heavy. Many of the prisoners were in a bad 
 r,tate of health from previous hardships. The South is not yet 
 sufiiciently civilized to practise vaccination to any considerable 
 extent, and small-pox made terrible havoc among the prisoners. 
 From the operation of these causes the sanitary condition of 
 Fort Delaware was for some time very unsatisfactory. Thus far 
 there was some resemblance between Northern and Southern 
 prisons. But here it ceases. Every eff'ort was made to correct 
 the evils which were wasting the lives of the prisoners. The 
 simple, infallible test of the efficacy of these efibrts is the death- 
 rate which prevails. This has steadily declined, until in April, 
 May, and June last, it stood at ten and a half per cent, annually, 
 and was still diminishing. During these same months men were 
 dying in the stockade of Andersonville at a rate which would 
 swallow up the whole in about nine months ! At Belle Isle 
 the mortality was one hundred and fourteen per cent, per 
 annum. 
 
 The treatment of the prisoners at Fort Delaware leaves no 
 room for surprise at the low rate of mortality. When they 
 entered the prison they were stripped and washed. Their 
 clothes, which were generally, like their persons, in a very filthy 
 condition, were destroyed, and new clothes of the same de- 
 scription as those supplied to the Federal soldiers were served 
 out to them. The clothing supplied was ample. Every man 
 had at least two blankets, and those who were delicate had 
 more. The rations were, up to June last, the same as those 
 given to the Federal soldiers. At that time they were reduced, 
 to make them only equal to the rations which the prisoners had 
 enjoyed while in the Confederate ranks. Even that is quite 
 sufficient to preserve health. An abundant supply of pure water 
 was provided. The prisoners were lodged in well built and 
 
FUNDS OF THE SANITARY COMMISSION. 37 
 
 well ventilated barracks. They had abundant opportunity for 
 exercise and bathing. The Government regulations, intended 
 to protect them against improper treatment, were very minute 
 and most imperative. It is, of course, certain that hardsliips 
 have been endured in Northern prisons. But it really does not 
 admit of doubt that these hardships have been accidental ; that 
 they were not designed by the Northern Government; and were 
 remedied as soon as they were ascertained. Had the con- 
 tributors to the Liverpool Bazaar acquired even a slight know- 
 ledge of the circumstances, it would have saved them from tlie 
 commission of a great folly. 
 
 The delegates of the Christian Commission have laboured 
 indefatigably at Fort Delaware — distributing medicines, stimu- 
 lants, under-clothing, tracts, books and stationery — preaching to 
 the prisoners and conversing with them. The reading matter 
 given out was received gratefully, and the addresses listened to 
 in general with marked interest. 
 
 Fort Delaware is a perfectly fair representative of all the 
 Northern prisons. In some the mortality was less. At John- 
 son's Island in Ohio, during a period of twenty-one months, the 
 mortality was from three to four per cent, per annum. 
 
 The exchequer of the Sanitary Commission is fed by the 
 spontaneous offerings of the people. These have been upon a 
 gigantic scale. California sent one hundred thousand dollars in 
 gold as her first contribution. And last year at her elections 
 she placed money-boxes beside her electoral urns, and an almost 
 equal sum was again obtained. From first to last California has 
 given six hundred thousand dollars. The Insurance Companies, 
 the New York Banks, the Railway Companies have given princely 
 donations. All the while there are thousands of branch Com- 
 missions collecting money as well as goods. But the fashion ot 
 the hour is to have great fairs for the funds of the Commission. 
 The latest of these, and of course the greatest, were held in New 
 
38 THE CHRISTIAN COMMISSION. 
 
 York and Philadelphia. They each yielded above a million of 
 dollars. The earliest was held at Chicago. It was proposed by 
 the Governors of the four North-Western States. The amount 
 hoped for was twenty-five thousand dollars. The amount 
 realized was ninety thousand dollars. It was the strangest of 
 all the bazaars which the world has ever seen. There was an 
 abundance of sewed and knitted matters, and all the usual 
 female contributions. But it did not rest with these. Hundreds 
 of waggons came in with farm produce — great loads of hay, tons 
 of butter and cheese. Cows were offered, and horses and mules. 
 The poor man sent the poultry which had fed by his door : it 
 was all he had to give. Reaping-machines came in, threshing- 
 machines, pumps, ploughs, stoves, mill-stones, hundreds of ke^s 
 of nails, huge plates of wrought iron, hides, boots, native wine, 
 steam-engines, coal oil by the thousand gallons. The loaded 
 waggons came in long procession, toiling on from far off country 
 places. And as these prosaic-looking farmers and mechanics 
 plodded slowly past with their ungainly offerings, what was it 
 that brought tears into hundreds of eyes little used to weep ? 
 To us the Union is but a name. To these men it is dearer 
 than Hfe itself The deep pride and joy of their hearts to see 
 that others loved and honoured the Union even as they did, 
 could find expression only in tears. 
 
 UNITED STATES' CHRISTIAN COMMISSION. 
 
 Exceeding great and precious have been the services of the 
 Sanitary Commission — soothing much suffering, saving many 
 lives, powerfully contributing to the final success of the war. 
 But into the ideal of a perfect provision for the wants of this 
 army there enters something more, something higher than we 
 have yet met with. The Medical Science of America has proved 
 its enlightenment by the measures which it recommended for 
 the good of the army. The patriotism of America has proved 
 
THE CHRISTIAN COMMISSION. 39 
 
 its living vigour by giving effect to these recommendations. 
 The Christianity of America has now to show its zeal and 
 sanctified wisdom by its provision for the spiritual wants of the 
 soldiers ; by its tender ministry to the necessities both of body 
 and soul in the hour of nature's extremity. If Christian men 
 and women are found willing to leave their own home-enjo}- 
 ments and take up their abode among the soldiers — ministering 
 to their comfort when they are wounded or sick or weary, 
 supplying them with suitable reading, speaking to them of their 
 home and friends, winning their confidence and love, and seek- 
 ing to lead their minds to that great eternity on whose solemn 
 verge they are standing — then, indeed, the country will have 
 done its duty to the army. 
 
 The United States' Christian Commission was founded at 
 New York on the i6th of November 1861. The war had then 
 raged for several months. The bloody rout of Bull Run had 
 taken place. It was seen that the struggle was to be a pro- 
 tracted one. It was felt that after the utmost efforts of Govern- 
 ment, the soldiers must be without many things which they 
 ought to have, and which the country was eager to supply. 
 Already wounded men had lain for days upon the field. Already 
 the hospitals were full. The provision made by Government 
 for the sick was wholly unsatisfactory. In Virginia there was 
 established a huge camp for men recovering from wounds or 
 sickness. It was called Camp Convalescent ; but the soldiers, 
 with a just appreciation of its character, styled it Camp Misery. 
 No chaplain had ever been appointed. The sick received only 
 the ordinary rations supplied to men in health, and they were 
 often unable to use them. They were inadequately clothed. 
 There were almost no attendants. In cold and hunger, amid 
 filth and vermin, in pain and despair, the sick man wore out 
 his diseased life with no one to care either for his body or his 
 soul. Throughout the army the destitution of suitable reading 
 matter was extreme. The materials necessary for writing to 
 
40 GO VERXMENT SA NC T/OX. 
 
 friends at home were awanting. Even arrangements by which 
 the letters of friends could reach the soldiers did not exist. 
 Government had sought to find a chaplain for each regiment ; 
 but not more than one-fourth of that number could be obtained. 
 Of those who presented themselves and were accepted, many- 
 were inefficient, some were profligate. After a while most of 
 them resigned and went home. The moral condition of the 
 army was fitted to cause not anxiety merely, but alarm. 
 
 Under these urgent circumstances, and in obedience to the 
 universal wish, a convention was held of delegates from Young 
 Men's Christian Associations, and a Commission was appointed, 
 whose function it was to promote, in all competent ways, the 
 welfare of the soldiers and sailors engaged in the suppression of 
 the rebellion. It was composed originally of twelve members, 
 since enlarged to fifty — a change rendered necessary by the 
 rapid extension of the operations of the Commission. Its 
 chairman is George H. Stuart, Esq., of Philadelphia — a noble 
 specimen of a Christian merchant. His unwearied labours 
 and untiring energy as President of the Christian Commission 
 have made his name familiar as a household word throughout 
 the United States. 
 
 The sanction of Government was needful to the effective 
 working out of the new enterprise. This was applied for at the 
 outset, and granted with cordiality. Mr. Lincoln gave prompt 
 assurance of his approval. " Your Christian and benevolent 
 undertaking," he said, " for the benefit of the soldiers, is too 
 obviously proper and praise-worthy to admit of any difference 
 of opinion." The Secretary at War informed the Commission 
 that " this department is deeply interested in the spiritual good 
 of the soldiers, as well as in their intellectual improvement and 
 social and physical comfort, and will cheerfully give its aid to 
 the benevolent and patriotic of the land, who desire to improve 
 the condition of the troops." The Secretary of the Navy stated 
 that " the department will be gratified with any legitimate 
 
PUBLIC SUPPORT. 41 
 
 means to promote the welfare (present and future) of all who 
 are in the service." After a little, the Government assigned to 
 one of the departments — the Bureau of Equipment and Re- 
 cruiting — the duty of attending to the demands of the Com- 
 mission. The chief of that bureau at that time was Admiral 
 Foote, a good Christian man, with whom it was a labour of 
 love to further such objects as the Commission had in view. 
 Henceforth the Commission wanted for no facihty which it was 
 in the power of Government to supply. 
 
 Thus sanctioned, the Commission announced itself to the 
 people as an agency intended to benefit the soldiers. No 
 further appeal was needed to secure public support. The rail- 
 way companies granted free conveyance over their lines for all 
 tlie agents and for all the stores of the Commission. The 
 telegraph transmitted its messages free. Many of the principal 
 hotels opened their doors to its agents without charge. The 
 Commission occupied rent-free premises, and its affairs were 
 administered by clerks, most of whom served gratuitously. All 
 tract and publication societies have been lavish in their contri- 
 butions of reading matter. The American Bible Society sup- 
 plied freely the enormous demand which sprang up in the army 
 for copies of the Scriptures. 
 
 The support given by the general public was prompt, liberal, 
 enthusiastic. When money was required, it had merely to be 
 asked for. At one period, when the care of the wounded at 
 Gettysburg taxed the resources of the Commission, the chair- 
 man telegraphed his requisitions to the chief towns. He re- 
 ceived at once larger sums than he had asked for. A branch 
 Commission was speedily established in every town. Every one 
 contributed something. The women prepared all manner of 
 under-clothing, lint, and bandages. The little girls made 
 " housewives," which they stocked with needles, thread, and 
 buttons, and accompanied with loving notes to the unknown 
 soldiers who were to receive them. All traders offered dona- 
 
42 HEAD-QUARTERS OF CHRISTIAN COMMISSION. 
 
 tions of their several wares. The druggists gave medicines. 
 The cutlers gave knives and forks. The stationers gave paper 
 and envelopes, that the soldier might rehearse his battles to the 
 old folks at home. Clergymen's wives gave currant-Avine. 
 California sent a. great silver brick valued at three thousand 
 dollars. With a deep and grateful feeling that the soldiers were 
 fighting their battles, the American people poured eagerly their 
 offerings into every channel by which they knew that the soldiers 
 could be reached. 
 
 But a yet costlier evidence of interest in this cause had to be 
 given. From many, personal service in the camp or in the 
 field was required. It was indispensable that Christian men 
 and women, accepting the inevitable hardships and perils of 
 camp life, should make their home among the soldiers — labour- 
 ing continually for their comfort and spiritual good. The 
 Commission called for agents, and the summons was promptly 
 obeyed. Clergymen obtained leave of absence from their 
 flocks. Doctors forsook their patients ; lawyers forsook their 
 clients; merchants abandoned for the time their merchandise. 
 Three thousand devoted men, ministers and laymen, now 
 labour in the army, seeking to make the soldiers who fight for 
 them happier and better men. It is a hard and trying service. 
 Many have been brought to the borders of the grave, and some 
 have died, worn out by the terrible ordeal of fatigue, exposure, 
 and excitement to which they have been subjected. 
 
 The head-quarters of the Christian Commission are in Phila- 
 delphia. A vast business is transacted there. Great stores are 
 kept on hand, in part purchased by the Commission, in part 
 contributed by the people. From all corners of the Union is 
 an unceasing influx of such things as American men and women 
 think fitted to make a soldier comfortable. To every point of 
 the vast war-horizon is an equally unceasing efflux. From this 
 central office the delegate who has offered himself for service 
 with the army, is furnished with his instructions and equip- 
 
THE CHRISTIAN COMMISSION ON THE FIELD. 43 
 
 ment. He receives his commission, and along with it a raihvay- 
 pass which carries him free all over tlie country. He receives 
 a blanket and strap, that under all circumstances he may at 
 least be assured of a bed. If he is destined for the battle-field, 
 he receives a bucket and cup, that he may quench the devour- 
 ing thirst of the wounded ; and a lantern, because his ghastly 
 labours must be carried on by night as well as by day. In his 
 haversack are such small comforts for the wounded as may be 
 easily carried about, and a few suitable books or tracts. Where- 
 ever he goes, a depot is established at the nearest convenient 
 point. All suitable stores are copiously pushed forward to him, 
 and he ministers diligently both to the physical and mental 
 necessities of the soldiers. 
 
 So thick have come the battles of this terrible war, that it has 
 been found needful to keep the stores suited for such an emer- 
 gency always packed and ready for instant despatch. In the 
 warehouses of the Commission there are always to be seen 
 certain boxes and barrels with the grimly suggestive labelling, 
 " Stores for the next battle." Forewarned that a battle is at 
 hand, these are hurried down to the railway. They are de- 
 livered as near as possible to the scene of the expected conflict. 
 There the delegates await the horrid hours of battle with its 
 swift creation of the miseries which it is their duty to assuage. 
 The attack is made. Soon men begin to fall. Some are dead, 
 smitten out of life as by a thunderbolt. Some are wounded : 
 they are seen to stagger towards the rear; or they crawl, in the 
 instinct of helplessness, to the poor shelter of a log or fence; or 
 they lie motionless upon the ground; or they struggle to sit 
 erect, because the blood from their wounds otherwise would 
 choke them. The delegates go to them as soon as it is 
 possible, without undue exposure of their own lives, but often 
 while the battle still rages. They minister to the wounded where 
 they lie upon the field. They assist in conveying them to 
 hospital. Everything has to be done for the poor sufferers. 
 
44 THE CHRISTIAN COMMISSION ON THE FIELD. 
 
 They are often filthy; their clothes are matted with mud and 
 gore; the shoes have to be cut from their swollen feet. The 
 delegates wash them and clothe them in comfortable garments; 
 assist the surgeon to dress their wounds, or do so themselves; 
 prepare for them such food and drinks as they can use. Then 
 they speak to the wounded and perhaps dying man about his 
 soul. They write his last wishes, it may be, to his friends at 
 home. They read and pray beside him, and supply him with 
 reading matter if he is able to use it for himself They pour 
 the consolation of the gospel into the ear dulled by the near 
 approach of death, and they reverently close the eyes of the 
 dead. 
 
 When the three days' fighting at Gettysburg were over, and 
 the defeated rebels retired southwards, there were twenty 
 thousand wounded men left upon the field. For miles around, 
 every barn and shed and dwelling-house held wounded men. 
 The little town itself was full of them, and its pavements were 
 all . dabbled with blood. The Southerners abandoned their 
 wounded, and the Federals, intensely occupied with the pursuit 
 of their enemies, were able to do little else. The care of these 
 sufferers devolved upon voluntary agencies, of which the chief 
 were the Sanitary and Christian Commissions. Both had enor- 
 mous supplies of all needful articles speedily upon the field, 
 and the latter had three hundred delegates. Many of these 
 were surgeons, who furnished such professional relief as was 
 necessary. Many ladies were present, who occupied themselves 
 in cooking such dishes as wounded men would rehsh. It was 
 days before all the work could be overtaken. Meanwhile the 
 wounded men lay upon the muddy ground — for heavy rains had 
 fallen. By night and by day the work was continued, till all 
 who were able to be removed — rebel and loyal alike — were 
 conveyed to hospital. Some hundreds — most of whom ulti- 
 mately died — were so wounded that they could not be moved. 
 Upon them the delegates attended to the last, soothing to the 
 
THE CHRISTIAN COMMISSION IN THE CAMP. 45 
 
 Utmost their sufferings, and striving to guide their thoughts to 
 Him whose friendship is a solace even for the extremity of 
 human sorrow. 
 
 But the labours of the Christian Commission are not con- 
 fined to the battle-field. Among the vast masses of men living 
 in camp the delegates have done a great work. Among them, 
 too, as among the wounded, the delegates dispense benefits for 
 the body as well as for the mind. When the army marches, 
 the Christian Commission marches too, with its huge waggon- 
 loads of supplies. When the march is over, the " cooking- wag- 
 gon" of the Commission has an ample store of coffee or soup 
 ready for the wearied soldiers. In his hour of need, the soldier 
 receives just the thing he requires, be it food, be it clothing, be 
 it medical care. All is done kindly, affectionately. The sol- 
 dier sees, too, that it is done in the noblest spirit of self-sacrifice. 
 Not long ago, a division of General Grant's army before Rich- 
 mond, had gained an advanced position by three days of digging 
 and fighting. They were attacked by the rebels, and while the 
 fight was still proceeding, the cooking-waggon of the Christian 
 Commission drew nigh, and each of the wearied soldiers re- 
 freshed himself with a draught of hot coffee. The delegates 
 hover about the army, on the battle-field, in the hospital, and in 
 the camp, visibly with the single motive of making the men 
 better and more comfortable. Services such as these make the 
 soldier feel that he is fighting in a cause which is dear to his 
 country, and that his country requites him by her love and care. 
 And feeling so, when the delegates begin to discharge their 
 spiritual functions, they are ever assured of a willing audience. 
 They have approved their friendship for the soldier by a thou- 
 sand friendly offices. They speak with the gentle but irresistible 
 authority which approved friendship gives. Once, and once 
 only, they made the mistake of beginning to minister to the 
 wants of the soul while those of the body were clamant. In an 
 old mansion at Harrison's Landing, eighty-five wounded men 
 
46 MISSIONARY WO HA' IN THE ARMY. 
 
 were stowed away under the scorching roof. Their boots were 
 so hardened by the intense heat that they had to be cut away. 
 The attendants refused to work there, but nothing daunted the 
 zeal of the delegates. They bathed the feet of the sufferers, 
 and supplied such articles of under-clothing as were required. 
 Then prayer was offered, and a short address was given. And 
 then refreshments were served out. The wounded men had 
 listened patiently to the good words; but when the buckets 
 passed round with the cooling drink which was so grateful — 
 "Ah, doctor!" said they, "this is better than talk." It was 
 the same lesson which was taught by the Voice that spoke to 
 Elijah as he lay under the juniper-tree. It never required to 
 be repeated to the delegates of the Christian Commission. 
 
 The moral condition of the American army assumed early in 
 the war a seriously threatening aspect. The chaplaincy system 
 of the Government proved a conspicuous failure. It seemed 
 that the greater portion of the army would be wholly deprived 
 of religious teaching. And although many of the soldiers were 
 young men, piously nurtured, and indisposed to vice, the cor- 
 rupting influence of evil example was powerful enough, if unre- 
 strained, to have worked wide-spread demoralization. Religion 
 in the army, it was remarked by a soldier, was like the resources 
 of the country — we were living, on former capital. There was 
 imminent risk that this capital, like every other, would sufter 
 diminution by such a process. But the measures of the Chris- 
 tian Commission, supplemented by an improved chaplaincy 
 system, were promptly taken, and have been upon a scale suffi- 
 ciently vast for the emergency. And never have men who 
 Avent out to influence their fellow-men to good found an 
 audience more respectful, more interested, more sympathetic 
 than the American army. On nearly all the battle-fields of the 
 last three years have the delegates been present. In all the 
 hospitals, and in nearly all the camps, they have patiently pur- 
 sued their labours of love. There is scarcely a man who has 
 
THE CHRISTIAN COMMISSION IN THE HOSPITALS. 47 
 
 fired a musket for the Union but has received Bible and tracts 
 from the agents of the Christian Commission, and listened to 
 the words of life from their lips. There is scarcely a man who 
 has died in hospital of wounds or sickness, but an agent of the 
 Christian Commission has sat by his side and soothed his part- 
 ing agony with the voice of promise and of prayer. A mis- 
 sionary work of unexampled greatness has been done with un- 
 exampled acceptance and unexampled efficacy. 
 
 " I never imagined a more susceptible class of men than 
 those wounded soldiers," says one delegate ; " a few words are 
 often enough to fill their eyes with honest tears." In the 
 hospitals, among such an audience as that, the seed did not 
 fall on stony places. When Fortress Monroe was first visited 
 the men were dying at the rate of four per day, without any 
 one to remind them of Him who spoiled the grave of its 
 victory. The eagerness with which the delegates were listened 
 to was intense. Many of the men there knew little about 
 religion, and many who knew had neglected it. But now their 
 minds were turned anxiously in that direction. Many of the 
 more ignorant begged earnestly to be taught to pray. They 
 would gather round the delegates and with eager look listen to 
 the reading of the Bible. " And when the simple path to the 
 mercy-seat is shown to them, they seize upon it with a fervour 
 which is surprising indeed. God's Spirit seems constantly 
 present to turn our feeble words in the right direction to reach 
 the heart." 
 
 At Camp Convalescent the first duty of the Commission was 
 to make the invalids comfortable. About this they and the 
 agents of the Sanitary Commission set with an energy which 
 speedily caused " Camp Misery " to forget its name. By what 
 they did themselves, and what they induced Government to do. 
 they positively made the place cheerful and the men contented 
 and thankful. As the invahds could not worship in the open 
 air, the delegates purchased a large chapel-tent. In a short 
 
 4 
 
48 THE HOSPITAL AT WINDMILL POINT. 
 
 time they distributed twenty thousand Testaments and a million 
 pages of tracts and other reading matter. Their daily manner 
 of life was on this wise : — In the morning a prayer-meeting is 
 held, to which all professing Christians in the camp are in- 
 vited. Then the delegates set out to visit the men in their 
 tents. They carry with them books, tracts, writing paper (for 
 which the demand is great), and a variety of little comforts. 
 They learn the condition of the men. If any man needs more 
 delicate food than the Government ration, or is imperfectly 
 supplied with under-clothing, the delegates send to their depot 
 for what he requires. Then they engage in religious conversa- 
 tion, and give such books as are suitable. Tliis continues for 
 many hours. The evening is spent in the hospitals, and the 
 day is closed with another prayer-meeting. And the wearied 
 delegates, as they rest from their toils, are privileged to feel 
 that they have not laboured in vain. " All seem to be thirsting 
 for the water of life." 
 
 Windmill Point Hospital was established in January 1863. 
 The battle of Fredericksburg had recently been fought. The 
 baffled army of the North had retreated across the Rappa- 
 hannock. The wearied and dispirited men deemed the cam- 
 paign ended. But once more the word was given to advance. 
 It was unwisely given. The rain fell in torrents ; the roads 
 became impassable. The huge mass of men and horses, guns 
 and waggons, floundered desperately on, even after the utter 
 uselessness of their effort had become apparent to all. The 
 '* mud campaign " ended ingloriously, and the army struggled 
 back to its former position. That deadly march had wasted 
 the army more than a great battle would have done. There 
 were thousands now who required the shelter of an hospital. 
 The hospital was a city of tents. It stood on a large plain — 
 once a fruitful field, now desolated and waste. The weather 
 was ijiercingly cold. The hospital-tents were without fire. The 
 beds for the sick were branches laid upon the muddy ground. 
 
REVIVALS AMONG THE SOLDIERS. 49 
 
 Day and night the sick men — borne in ambulances and in 
 boats — came pouring in. Thousands of pale, shivering, diseased 
 lads, waited the relief of death in those miserable tents. Many 
 died of cold. Very many more must have perished but for the 
 relief afforded by the Christian Commission. The delegates 
 had to hew their fuel from the wood before fires were possible. 
 They prepared food and stimulating drinks, and passing con- 
 tinually from tent to tent they were able to relieve the more 
 urgent necessities of the sick. A telegraphic summons quickly 
 placed at their disposal abundant supplies of bread, cordials, 
 dried fruit, under-clothing. Thus many lives were saved. At 
 length Government aid upon an adequate scale came in. The 
 delegates were then able to give themselves mainly to their 
 spiritual duties. Prayer was re^ilarly offered in the hospital. 
 Meetings were held in a large cook-house. Those who were 
 confined to bed were regularly conversed with. It became 
 evident that these labours were richly successful. " Silently 
 and wonderfully a deep solemnity came upon the camp." In 
 America it is the wont of religious feeling to find expression 
 with a freedom which seems strange to a reticent people like 
 ourselves. At one meeting in the cook-house over fifty soldiers 
 publicly announced their determination to begin a Christian 
 life — a determination upon whose sincerity succeeding events 
 do not appear to have cast any doubt. 
 
 Scarcely less susceptible than the sick men have been those 
 in health. The delegates have laboured without ceasing among 
 them, and in a remarkable degree have contributed to preserve 
 the moral welfare of the troops. 
 
 There have occurred in some portions of the army religious 
 revivals such as would cause any Church in peaceful Christendom 
 greatly to rejoice. The 63rd Pennsylvania Regiment was re- 
 cruited from among the grave, well-living farmer class, in the 
 western parts of the State whose name it bears. It was sent 
 into Virginia. Reports of the wickedness of the Army of the 
 
so REVIVALS AA/O.VG THE SOLDIERS. 
 
 Potomac had spread dismay in the quiet homes of western 
 Pennsylvania. Many prayers went up to Heaven, and many 
 letters full of warning and entreaty ceased not to reach the 
 youths on whose behalf worse dangers than those of battle 
 were dreaded. A deep impression had been produced by these 
 letters. At the Sabbath services which were held for the regi- 
 ment, an unusual solemnity was remarked. An urgent demand 
 for religious books was experienced, and many hundreds of 
 such works were distributed and eagerly received. So rapidly 
 did this feeling deepen, that it was soon found necessary to 
 hold a daily prayer-meeting. Every day several of the men 
 came to the chaplain for conversation and prayer. After a 
 while, it was resolved to found a church in the regiment. The 
 first communion was dispensed on a Sabbath in the month of 
 February. The day was still and beautiful. There was a 
 quietness and solemnity in the camp such as characterize our 
 best New England or Scottish villages on a similar occasion. 
 Among the communicants were forty-six regarding whom it was 
 known that they had become Christians since they became 
 soldiers. It was February 1862. There lay before these youths, 
 as they sat thus reverently around the table of their Lord, years 
 of the sternest service which it ever fell to the lot of man to 
 perform. Strong in the conviction that their duty to God as 
 well as to their country called them, they faced with calmness 
 that future so full of inevitable horrors. 
 
 At Stoneman's Station, on the Rappahannock, a very remark- 
 able and perfectly authenticated revival took place. The 
 Christian Commission had carried out there, as now at all 
 other points, its cherished purpose of furnishing every soldier 
 with a copy of the New Testament. A large chapel was erected 
 upon an eminence which looked over miles of tents and many 
 thousands of armed men. Every night meetings were held. 
 As the hour drew nigh officers and men were to be seen in 
 little groups wending their way to the house of prayer. The 
 
REVIVALS AMONG THE SOLDIERS. 5 1 
 
 chapel was always crowded, and generally there was a throng 
 around the door. The services were listened to with profound 
 interest. It is usual at such meetings in America for persons 
 to communicate publicly to others their religious experience. 
 Among ourselves the antipathy to any exhibition of the inner 
 spiritual life is carried to an extreme which is not always salu- 
 tary. The Americans, perhaps, go to the opposite extreme. 
 Be that as it may, at these meetings veterans who had been in 
 many battles rose to tell how a consciousness of union with the 
 Saviour had supported them in all dangers, and made all hard- 
 ships seem light to them. Others would inquire eagerly how 
 they could attain to the same blessedness. Others would ear- 
 nestly beseech the prayers of their comrades. It is known that 
 hundreds of soldiers received there their knowledge of Christ. 
 Many of these live now in the consistent discharge of the 
 duties of the Christian life. Many have passed from the wild 
 strife of battle to join the company of the redeemed in 
 heaven. 
 
 The 40th Indiana Regiment was stationed for some time at 
 Huntsville, in Alabama. There were some Christian men in 
 the regiment who were prevailed on by a delegate of the 
 Christian Commission to hold a prayer-meetirg. Seven of 
 them met every night under a certain tree in the great forest 
 which lay around their encampment. In a {z\n weeks some of 
 their comrades dropped in. A little later and the whole regi- 
 ment, officers and men, gathered to the meeting. The tree 
 was abandoned, and a deserted church in the town was secured. 
 The other regiments took part in the movement. Nightlv, 
 while the troops lay there, a vast military prayer-meeting was 
 held in the crowded church. The results cannot be accurately 
 told, but it is beyond doubt that great and enduring good was 
 received by many hundreds of the soldiers. 
 
 The teamsters and other labourers connected with the Army 
 of the Potomac were remarkable for their unbridled wickedness. 
 
52 REVIVALS AMONG THE SOLDIERS. 
 
 They were herded together in two great encampments which 
 were a scandal to the army. They knew no Sabbath. Gambhng 
 was their pastime. Drinking was frightfully prevalent. " The 
 atmosphere shook with profanity." They refused to enter a 
 church which was provided for them. One day their missionary 
 went into the camp accompanied by his wife, and mounting 
 upon a box commenced to sing. The missionary's wife was an 
 exceedingly sweet singer, and the pleasing sounds speedily 
 attracted a crowd. The missionary talked to them and prayed 
 with them. He had gained their ear, and they invited him to 
 come back. Shortly they arranged a canvas chapel of their 
 own with a rude pulpit. For pews they had planks stretched 
 between bales of hay. It was their own church, and they 
 evinced their interest in it by regular attendance. Gradually 
 the aspect of the teamsters' camp changed. These rough men 
 yielded to the influence of kind treatment and faithful religious 
 teaching. Many of them made a credible profession of faith 
 in Christ. The others ceased, at all events, from that ex- 
 cess of wickedness in which they had hitherto delighted to 
 riot. 
 
 Murfreesboro', where a great Union victory was gained two 
 years ago, was then a ragged little village of wooden houses. 
 Around it there stretched a great city of canvas tents, the home 
 for the time of the gallant army whose appointed task it was to 
 rescue Tennessee from the rebellion. When the Christian 
 Commission first sent delegates to that army, the battle had 
 just been fought. The army was almost without religious 
 teaching. Scarcely any chaplains were there ; scarcely any 
 Bibles. Many of the men had not heard sermon or prayer 
 since they entered the army. They had nothing to read ; 
 nothing to interest them. Inevitably they fell into vice. Never- 
 theless the delegates found themselves from the first engaged 
 in a most inviting and hopeful work. That singular suscepti- 
 bility to religious influences which the American army has ever 
 
SOLDIERS' READING-ROOM. 53 
 
 evinced, became at once apparent. The seed sown in many 
 churches, Sabbath schools, and Christian homes, was ready to 
 quicken. Their long bereavement of religious privilege made 
 the men listen with avidity. The usual daily prayer-meeting 
 was established. At once there arose an urgent call for Bibles 
 and hymn-books. The demand was so large, that difficulty 
 was experienced in supplying it. The American Bible Society 
 prints daily seven thousand copies of the New Testament ; and 
 these were regularly sent to the Army of the Cumberland. In 
 a short time thirty-five thousand Testaments, thirty thousand 
 hymn-books, and a world of reading matter besides, gladdened 
 the dwellers in that canvas city. The Americans take mucli 
 delight in the singing of hymns. To the soldiers many of the 
 well-known hymns came hallowed by touching memories of 
 that home they might never see again. Everywhere in the 
 camp men were heard singing those familiar strains. The gospel 
 was preached from tent to tent with success " never before 
 equalled on any similar field." The change wrought was mar- 
 vellous. The open wickedness once so lamentably prevalent 
 almost disappeared. " A new moral face is given to the army." 
 All the phenomena of a genuine revival of religion were wit- 
 nessed upon a scale of unusual greatness. 
 
 In small matters, as in great, the Christian Commission acts 
 towards the soldiers with a thoughtful kindness which cannot 
 fail to touch the heart. At the various head-quarters of the 
 Commission there is always a room set apart as the Soldiers' 
 Reading-Room. The leading religious and secular newspapers 
 are provided. There is a large writing-table with the appro- 
 priate furnishings. Generally there is a library. Conspicuous 
 to the eye of all entrants is the following notice, whose tone, so 
 considerate and so loving, illustrates well the care which the 
 American army enjoys: — "The newspapers hanging on the 
 files are dailies and weeklies from your State and county. Sit 
 down and read. The writing-table and stationery are for your 
 
54 DISTRIBUTION OF RELIGIOUS WORKS. 
 
 use. They want to hear from you at home. If out of stamps, 
 drop your letter in the box — we will stamp and mail it. Those 
 Testaments, hymn-books, and religious papers, were sent to 
 you — take one. The library has many interesting books ; find 
 the one you like, have it recorded, and return it in five days. 
 If you are in trouble, speak to any agent in the room ; you are 
 the one he wants to see." 
 
 The distribution of religious works by the Commission has 
 been upon a scale of astonishing magnitude. During one 
 year (1863) there were distributed half a million copies of the 
 Scriptures, and nearly the same number of hymn and psalm 
 books; one million and a quarter of small books for the knap- 
 sack — many of them written specially for the soldiers ; three 
 million copies of religious newspapers, and twelve million pages 
 of tracts. These have been received in the vast majority of 
 instances with avidity. They form a munificent provision for 
 the spiritual necessities of the soldier, and a splendid testimony 
 to the wisdom and goodness of that portion of the American 
 people "who are most profoundly in earnest in their determina- 
 tion to suppress the rebellion. 
 
 The revenue of the Commission for the year 1863 was close 
 upon one million dollars. During last year its operations have 
 been upon a greatly enlarged scale; its revenue having risen to 
 nearly two millions. 
 
 RESULTS OF THE VARIOUS AGENCIES. 
 
 These various agencies for -promoting the welfare of the 
 American army have now been employed with zeal and untiring 
 energy for three years or more. It is time to inquire what 
 their efficacy has been. What is the present condition of the 
 army, as to health, morality, and contentment? Vast pains 
 have been taken to requite these men for tlieir patriotic sacrifice. 
 Are they better men, or better off, or more contented with 
 
HEALTH OF THE AMERICAN ARMY. 55 
 
 their service, than the soldiers of other countries have 
 been? 
 
 The health of the American army is remarkably good. Its 
 losses by disease have been very small. The Duke of Wellington 
 lost by disease at the average annual rate of 113 per 1000, 
 In their Mexican war the American volunteers lost 152 per 
 1000; and the regulars 81 per 1000. During seven months of 
 our own Crimean Campaign we lost at the annual rate of 600 
 per 1000. The loss of the American army in the present war 
 has been rather less than 50 per 1000. In many commands 
 the per centage of sick men is surprisingly low. During last 
 winter and spring the corps which was stationed in Alabama 
 had at one time only four per cent, excused from duty, and of 
 these only one-half were so ill as to require medical attendance. 
 In some of the regiments there was not a single inmate of an 
 hospital. From Florida it is reported — " The per centage of 
 sickness is very low." In the department of the Gulf the 
 sanitary condition of the army was very remarkable. Only 
 four per cent, of the force was on the sick list; and in some 
 divisions only one and a half per cent. In front of Charleston, 
 and southward, along that malarious coast, the risk was pecu- 
 liarly great. The troops occupied marshy islets, maintained 
 laborious siege operations, kept up an unremitting line of 
 pickets in a chmate which was deemed always insalubrious, and 
 at certain seasons pestilential. At the end of a year of such 
 service, it is reported that the sickness among these troops is 
 not greater than is usually suffered by the same classes of men 
 engaged in the pursuits of civil life. 
 
 The care bestowed upon the physical condition of the 
 American army has not, then, been in vain. The sanitary pre- 
 cautions which have been adopted, the ample rations supplied 
 by Government, and the yet more ample and generous contri- 
 butions of the two Commissions, have economized life to an 
 enormous extent, and exercised a decisive influence upon the 
 
56 MORAL CONDITION OF THE ARMY. 
 
 destiny of the war. Had America incurred the losses which 
 we incurred in the Crimea, the first year of the war would pro- 
 bably have been the last. Already she has lost by sickness 
 something like one hundred thousand men. Had the mortality 
 been the same in this as in her Mexican war, her losses would 
 have trebled that number. The prospect of the war would 
 have been very different to-day had there been two hundred 
 thousand veterans fewer following the national standard, or had 
 there been a necessity for that number of conscripts beyond 
 those that have been required. 
 
 Regarding the moral condition of the army, no such precise 
 statements can be made. This much is certainly known, that 
 there is a large and a growing number of really good men in 
 the army. There is wickedness in every form prevailing among 
 the troops. But there is a presence in the army under which 
 wickedness is rebuked. There is a very considerable admixture 
 of religious soldiers — men who have borne a Christian character 
 for years, and who, having enlisted for no meaner purpose than 
 to save the national life, make conscience of their work. These 
 men openly avow their religion, and they are numerous enough 
 to be felt as a power. Among American Christians there is no 
 attempt at concealment. They read their Bibles; they sing 
 hymns ; they pray alone, or in the meeting, without the slightest 
 desire that their pleasure in these occupations should remain 
 unknown. They are seen to leave the camp for some con- 
 venient retirement, and their song of praise is heard to rise 
 upon the evening air. They speak to their comrades about the 
 Saviour. If there are two or three men in a tent who are 
 Christians, it has happened over and over again that their 
 influence has persuaded their fellow-inhabitants into the same 
 life. Religion such as this is powerfully aggressive. Then 
 there has been everywhere the presence of the Christian Com- 
 mission, with its loving ministries, its earnest and godly coun- 
 sels. Nearlv everv soldier has now his Bible, which manv read 
 
PATRIOTIC ARDOUR OF THE ARMY. 57 
 
 and prize. It is probably the fact, that the Bible is more largely 
 read in the American army than by any half million of men 
 engaged in the pursuits of civil life. On the field of Gettysburg 
 a large number of Bibles and prayer-books were picked up. 
 They belonged to the wounded, and were the solace of those 
 bitter hours which had to pass before assistance could be 
 rendered. The hymn-book is quite as constant a companion. 
 During the night which followed the battle of Shiloh, a wounded 
 m.an, unable to rise from the field, felt impelled, with such 
 strength as he possessed, to sing a hymn. Another of the 
 wounded near him caught up the strain, and then another, and 
 another, till far and wide over that" field, cumbered with dead 
 and dying men, there rose a song of praise. Religious reading 
 of all kinds has been copiously supplied to the soldiers. We 
 cannot estimate otherwise than very generally the influence of 
 these various agencies. All we can say is, that the tide of 
 immorality which threatened to flow over the army at the out- 
 set of its career has been in considerable measure stayed ; that 
 while blasphemy abounds to a lamentable extent, there is com- 
 paratively little drunkenness, and no unusual prevalence of 
 other gross sins ; that there is really a large proportion of pious 
 soldiers — " praying men," as they are styled— known as sucli 
 by their comrades and officers, and universally recognised, not 
 merely as the quietest and most orderly inmates of the camp, 
 but also as decidedly the most effective men on a field of battle. 
 It has been often said that the American soldiers are wearied 
 of this war. Yes, they are wearied of it. They are not the 
 kind of men who take up fighting as the business of their lives. 
 And the country is wearied of the war. In a vast multitude of 
 American homes there is sorrow for sons and brothers fallen in 
 battle; and terror, which is never lifted from the heart, for 
 those yet exposed to its perils. We hear of families, largely 
 related, who sustain a loss in almost every battle that is fought. 
 Is it surprising that soldiers and people shoult! earnestly desire 
 
58 ISSUES OF THE H^AR. 
 
 the end of a war which has brought such miseries upon the 
 landl Nothing would be so welcome as a sound and lasting 
 peace; and nothing so abhorred as a premature peace. The 
 soldiers wish it was over; but they know very well there is but 
 one way it ever can be over. They know that America must 
 conquer in this war, or lay down for ever her name and place 
 among the nations of the earth. They have come there to save 
 their country, and they have no thought of leaving till the 
 country is saved. The kindness lavished upon them causes 
 them to feel that their sacrifice is gratefully accepted by the 
 country, and continually rekindles their patriotic ardour. In 
 nearly every instance, those regiments whose period of service 
 had expired, and to whom it was open to march homeward, 
 even from the verge of battle if they so pleased, have re-enlisted 
 for the war. The w'ounded upon an American battle-field, or 
 in an hospital, manifest a spirit singularly uncomplaining, 
 patient, and cheerful. They are sustained by the conviction 
 that the cause for which they are suffering is worthy of it all. 
 It would be easy to fill a volume with evidences that the 
 wounded soldiers give their limbs and their lives without a 
 grudge. Men who have endured untold agonies say that they 
 have no regrets, as the country must be saved. Dying men 
 declare with their latest breath that in this cause they lay 
 down their lives willingly — satisfied if, by living or by dying, 
 they can serve their country. The same spirit animates all 
 classes. Even mothers whose sons have fallen, and whose 
 loss must darken with sorrow all their remaining years, offer 
 willingly this so costly sacrifice. 
 
 ISSUES OF THE WAR. 
 
 The issues directly raised by this war are of tremendous 
 significance, to America and to the world. Is America a nation, 
 or merely a loose, incohering aggregate of independent powers! 
 
GAINS OF THE WAR. 59 
 
 Is government to be any longer possible in America? Is there 
 to exist upon the North American Continent a great Christian 
 Nation — powerful, enlightened, pacific, with a great and growing 
 influence, ever wielded in the world's affairs upon the side of 
 truth and right; or is there to be, as in South America, a 
 multitude of Republics, whose political situation is chronic 
 revolution and war, whose social condition is barbarism? Is 
 there to be a Christian civilization and a Slave-owning civihza- 
 tion face to face, in perpetual, immitigable hostility; or is the 
 purer and nobler civilization to subdue and assimilate its baser 
 rival? The American people have given a decisive answer to 
 these questions. From the beginning they said that America 
 was a nation whose national life must be maintained, at what- 
 ever cost. They say now that slave-owning, since it cannot 
 consent to live at peace with its neighbours, shall cease from 
 off that continent. For rational men no other decision seems 
 to have been possible. On that point, however, opinion may, 
 and does differ. But on this other point there can be no question 
 in any mind which possesses any competent acquaintance with 
 the subject. The American people have evinced in the highest 
 degree an intelligent comprehension of their situation ; a calm, 
 deep, inflexible adherence, under all trials, to the course which 
 they judged it wise to pursue; a love of country which has 
 never been excelled ; and a heroic willingness to undergo the 
 extremity of suffering in the great cause. Republican institu- 
 tions are upon their trial. That trial is not yet nearly accom- 
 plished. Thus far, however, they have stood it nobly; and 
 every month makes it more evident that they will come out of 
 it in triumph. No costlier probation has ever been undergone. 
 But its cost will be exceeded by its gains. In the effort to 
 prove that she is a nation, America will become a nation. She 
 will eliminate from her social system a vicious institution, which 
 sullied her fair name and hindered her material progress. She 
 will reap hereafter the peaceable fruits of her suffering, in a 
 
6o 
 
 GAIiVS OF THE IVAK. 
 
 national character purified, chastened, strengthened. And she 
 has added already to her possessions that which is, perhaps, 
 the most noble and ennobling of them all — a long record of 
 great deeds heroically done, and of great sacrifices heroically 
 offered from love to her name. 
 
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