Page:The Story of Aunt Becky's Army-Life .djvu/188

148 men have almost died—nay, worse than died, for the country—that country should, like a grateful mother, gather up her children in her loving arms, protect them and theirs, with her means and her strength, and so far as outward things will go, soften the pathway all through life. She cannot do too much, alas! I fear she will do too little.

My sympathies all centre in the soldiers who wear the common blue of the ranks—whose columns have been swept down like grain before the reaper, whose bones lie many deep under the battle-sods—whose blood has moistened the roots of countless grasses, and dyed many a stream with its muddy flow.

Those who have money and position will receive all which these can bring—it is smaller matter when a soldier, in the coarse uniform, lies low—only the few ripples which widen out to the circle of home, and intimate friends, are seen, and the dream is past.

The prospect is, that this spring's campaign will be the hardest of the war—how I shudder at the thought of so many brave fellows rushing into the jaws of death, and perishing on the instant. Something is wrong somewhere. God never made man in his image to be thus mutilated and murdered by the hand of his brothers. His mighty curse rests on the slayer's head, and shall those who wrought this killing go unscathed?

The giant intellect works at the great problem till it solves a way to take life by the hundreds, and iron missiles are moulded with poison in their, hearts, to corrode and steal away the life which they got not