Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 01.djvu/95

 mind, and stores it with a panorama whose pictures he may pass before his mental vision with quiet pleasure year after year for a lifetime.

War is horrible, but still it is in a sense a privilege to have lived in time of war. The emotions are never so stirred as then. Imagination takes her highest flights, poetry blazes, song stirs the soul, and every noble attribute is brought into full play.

It does seem that the production of one Lee and one Jackson is worth much blood and treasure, and the building of a noble character all the toil and sacrifice of war. The camp fires of the Army of Northern Virginia were not places of revelry and debauchery. They often exhibited gentle scenes of love and humanity, and the purest sentiments and gentlest feelings of man were there admired and loved, while vice and debauch, in any, from highest to lowest, were condemned and punished more severely than they are among those who stay at home and shirk the dangers and toils of the soldier's life. Indeed, the demoralizing effects of the late war were far more visible "at home" among the skulks, and bomb-proofs, and suddenly diseased, than in the army.

And the demoralized men of to-day are not those who served in the army.

The defaulters, the renegades, the bummers and cheats, are the boys who enjoyed fat places and salaries and easy comfort—while the solid, respected and reliable men of the community are those who did their duty as soldiers, and having learned to suffer in war have preferred to labor and suffer and earn rather than steal—in peace.

And, strange to say, it is not those who suffered most and lost most, who fought and bled—who saw friend after friend fall, who wept the dead and buried their hopes—it is not these who now are bitter and dissatisfied, and quarrelsome and fretful, and growling and complaining—no, they are the peaceful, submissive, law-abiding and order-loving of the country, ready to join hands with all good men in every good work, and prove themselves as brave and good in peace as they were stubborn and unconquerable in war.

Many a weak, puny boy was returned to his parents a robust, healthy, manly man. Many a timid, helpless boy went home a brave, independent man. Many a wild, reckless boy, went home sobered, serious and trustworthy, and many whose career at home was wicked and blasphemous, went home changed in heart, with