They made fealty to their cause, the price of their assistance in advancement to high station and public honors. Compromise followed compromise, adjustment came after adjustment, settlement succeeded settlement, and after each final settlement new dissensions arose and fresh causes of discord sprang up.

Long before 1860, thoughtful men discovered, and patriots trembled for the future of the country, as they considered, that in the very heart of our body politic, there was going on a conflict between opposing and enduring forces,-a conflict which must continue till one or the other force was utterly overthrown and destroyed,—a conflict, the ultimate results of which no one could foresee.

Then came the John Brown raid,—one of those great events which changes the current of history, and which appeals from the judgment of men to the judgment of God. By it some of the slave states were driven into a panic, and most of the others into a frenzy bordering on madness. Then came the eventful days preceding the presidential election of 1860-the canvass of parties divided by sectional lines and sectional issues; streets filled with processions bearing launting mottoes and badges of defiance. Men assembled in multitudes all over the land; sometimes to listen to the appeals of patriots, pleading for the sway of reason and of law, and for a restoration of the fraternal feeling of the founders of the Republic; more often to be inflamed by the high sounding phrases and fiery words of demagogues, hungry for office or panting for notoriety, by whatsoever means attained. "Little Giants" and "Wide-awakes," with their torches and capes and the fanciful uniforms and their still more fanciful evolutions contributed to increase the baleful splendor, and to swell the excitement of the frantic Saturnalia.

Lincoln was elected President by a constitutional majority in due form of law.

Then followed the closing days of 1860 and the opening days of 1861-those days of shame and humiliation and disgrace-days, the remembrance of which, even yet, like a strong buffet brings the blood to the cheek of the loyal citizen and the patriot.

Rebellion rioted in the streets and in the palaces of our National Capital. Spies and traitors held places in the Cabinet and posts of confidence and trust under the government. Defiant treason stalked openly in the Senate Chamber and in the Congress

Hall. In the Executive chamber sat trembling imbecility-which permitted the army to be disorganized and the navy to be dispersed among the uttermost seas.

State after state enacted its ordinance of secession. Day by day went on in a rapidly increasing series the theft and spoilation of government property, the capture of forts and arsenals, the indignities to loyal officials, the defiance of National authority.

For the time, it seemed as if the whole North were stricken with panic and overwhelmed with terror. For the sake of peace, her politicians and place hunters and alleged statesmen, with a few honorable exceptions, without distinction of party, proposed to surrender all that had been won, to abandon the principles whose advocacy had insured success, and by a constitutional amendment to firmly establish slavery and to perpetuate it for all time to

come.

Thanks be to God! treason and rebellion, stricken with judicial blindness, spurned the proposition with the ignominy and contempt which it deserved. They fired upon the flag and made war against the Nation. Instantly we were brought face to face with war and all its attendant horrors and merciless severity. And here occurred the first "transition." The people asserted themselves. They broke away from their leaders. They spurned and trampled beneath their feet the caution and timidity and cowardice of those to whom they had been accustomed to look for leadership and advice.

Millions of citizens consecrated themselves and all that they possessed to the service of the Republic, and contributed to swell the mighty tide of loyal enthusiasm, whose fiery current swept away or overwhelmed whatsoever and whomsoever obstructed or opposed its resistless force. This tide oftentimes carried men of small moment and importance into positions of eminence and authority, just as the swollen river sometimes carries the drift wood over the highest banks to leave it stranded when the flood abates. But such men did not create nor control the torrent on which they happened for a time to float. From the multitude who had thus broken away from former ties, and cut loose from ancient traditions, were recruited the armies which preserved the Union and restored the supremacy of the Nation.

To illustrate and describe the "transitions of feeling, thought and action," through which the quiet boy passed from the field, or

the shop, till he became the cool, self-reliant, courageous, invincible veteran soldier, is a task not voluntarily to be assumed nor easily to be performed.

But through these transitions passed every member of that Grand Army, who stood by his colors in the memorable April days of 1865, as it went on from victory to victory, from glory to glory. And not only they, who thus long survived, but their gallant comrades who fell by their side on many a well fought field, sealing the full measure of their devotion by the baptism of blood and fire.

It was more than a transition. It was a transformation-a resurrection of the Spirits of Freedom and of Liberty-a glorification of human nature itself. What they did, the men who passed through this transformation, we know; and the world knows it too. The record is enrolled in the Capitol to be seen and read of all mankind. Its hieroglyphics are to be found on the heights of Vicksburg and Mission Ridge; on the slopes of Gettysburg, and in the bloody paths of the Wilderness.

But while it is early to see the results of this transformation, the processes of transition by which it was attained are not so readily apparent.

There were transitions of thought, of feeling and of action. In many cases they were so marked that the returning veteran seemed to be, as indeed he was, a new creature. In the stalwart soldier of 1865 there remained but slight traces of the timid and bashful recruit of 1861. The fair Goddess of Freedom, with her inspiring kiss, had imbued his body with a grander beauty, and breathed a new life into his soul. Let us note some of the changes easily apparent and readily recalled. First, the citizen learned that he belonged to his country-that his first duty was to her that she had a right to his time, his property, his services, and, if need be, to his life. He asserted himself, and in such assertion arose to the full stature of loyal, courageous and patriotic manliness. He sundered all ties of party, sect or creed which tended to lessen the full discharge of the obligations arising from his allegiance to the Government of the fathers. He recognized the situation at a glance. He had no need to study constitutional disquisitions or to listen to hair-splitting arguments. He recognized the inexorable logic of facts and events. He understood that the men who refused to march under the flag and "keep step to the music"

of the Union, were unfaithful and disloyal; and that they who marched under the other flag, and "kept step" to different music, with arms in their hands, were engaged in the work of treason and rebellion. And having this knowledge, he left father and mother, wife and child, and houses, and lands, and went straightway to the nearest recruiting camp or enrolling officer to be "mustered into the service." Sometimes he took nothing but the clothing on his back; sometimes he took a large amount of "impedimenta "—including almost all the paraphernalia of a well-regulated small family, except the cooking stove and family Bible. All bore the same courageous hearts; all were animated by the same zeal; all had the same supreme faith in the justice and ultimate triumph of the cause, and the principles for which they had come to fight. While I say this, I am speaking of those who came to enlist, willing to take any rank and to perform any service which would help on the good cause; and not of that class-happily, not very numerous-who were willing to volunteer as brigadiers or majors-general, provided they could be assigned to a command commensurate with their ideas of their own importance.

Arrived in camp, the situation is by no means as rosy and inviting as it is sometimes pictured. Sour bread or hard-tack, black coffee, sow-belly, half boiled beans-this is not inviting diet to a boy who has been all his life used to chicken and sweet potatoes, sweet cream and preserves. The exchange of a good feather-bed for a blanket on the bare ground is not a pleasant one. Many new things are to be learned; such as, how to cook, how to pitch and how to strike a tent, how to sew on buttons and how to patch, how to sleep in the dirt and keep the clothing clean, how to sleep in the rain and keep dry. Constant drill-company, battalion or squad-guard duty, police and fatigue duty. These, and things like them, engage his attention and occupy his time. There is almost a total deprivation of accustomed conveniences. There is a good deal of positive discomfort. The recruit, at first, does not see the use of all this trouble." There is sometimes grumbling, but never sullenness. The work and the drill and duty go on. As soon as these things are seen to be necessary, there is no further complaining. The rations or the cooking-perhaps both-improve. He learns to handle the musket, the spade and the axe.

Sometimes he does not take kindly to the two latter

implements. His hands sometimes blister.

He ventures to sug

gest to the officer in charge of the detail that he “enlisted to fight, and not to cut wood or dig ditches." But he soon learns that a log will stop bullets, and that the shelter of a rifle-pit is not to be despised. And so the first transition of the citizen-soldier after he enters camp, is from grumbling to patience, from restlessness to content. I know of no class of men who have, in letter and in spirit, better than the ex-soldiers, kept the Apostolic injunc tion, "Be content with such things as ye have."

From the camp, he goes to the field. He learns how to pack, to sling and unsling his knapsack, and to fold his blanket - and neither of these things is quickly learned. He has experience in marching over all kinds of ground and over all varieties of roads. His regiment is attached to a division and sent to the front. He goes on picket, on the skirmish line into the rifle-pit or the "gopher" hole. He becomes alert, clear and cool-headed, self-possessed and self-reliant, and, above all, self-respecting. He goes under fire. He assists in guarding a battery while it is being heavily shelled. He is in the line which receives the attack, or he belongs to the attacking force. He mingles in the charge or in the assault. He has seen a battle and been a participant in actual conflict. He has learned new lessons. He is beginning to be a soldier. He learns how to get under cover quickly; to advance rapidly when exposed. He acquires steadiness. His powers of observation are quickened. He takes in at a glance the nature of the ground upon which he is encamped or over which he marches; and he knows the best point at which to station a picket post, and where to locate the line of sentinels; and selects in a moment the very point where a given force can make the best possible defense. He acts promptly and with resolution. He cannot, perhaps, describe in technical language what he is doing; but he is learning the things, an experimental knowledge of which marks the difference between the regular and the militiaman - between the veteran and the recruit. By this time he understands that he is not engaged in any holiday business. Homesickness has worn off. Home concerns are less, if at all, remembered. He begins to realize that peace and order are to be secured only by beating and overthrowing and destoying the Rebel armies; and he makes up his mind to devote himself entirely to assisting in that business. He has taken another series of lessons; but there is still much to