Failure will compel us to drink the cup of humiliation even to the bitter dregs of having the history of our struggle written by New-England historians.

Let us not despond, my countrymen, but, relying on God, meet the foe with fresh defiance, with unconquered and unconquerable hearts." It is clearly established that Mr.

From beginning to end the Rebellion was based upon the suppression of that which was true and the suggestion of that which was untrue.

Their experience as soldiers, so far from unfitting them for the duties and callings of Peace, seem rather to have proved an admirable school, and to have given them habits of promptness and punctuality, order and neatness, which added…

After the Continental Army was dissolved, its members were found to be models of industry and intelligence in all the walks of life.

The successful mechanics, the thrifty tradesmen, the well-to-do farmers in the old thirteen States were found, in great proportion, to have held a commission or carried a musket in the Army of the Revolution.

They were, moreover, the strong pioneers who settled the first tier of States to the westward, and laid the solid foundation which assured progress and prosperity to their descendants.

The same cause brought the same result a century later in men of the same blood fighting with equal valor the same battle of Constitutional liberty.

The inspiration of a great cause does not fail to ennoble the humblest of those who do battle in its defense.

Benjamin Harrison of Indiana commanded a brigade before he was thirty, and made a military record which did honor to the illustrious name which he inherits.

Fletcher Webster lost his life while bravely commanding a Massachusetts regiment in a war which his illustrious father's exposition of the Constitution had served the arm of the Government to maintain.

That men without previous military education should prove to be intelligent, brave, efficient, and skillful officers, was a constant surprise to the foreign critics of our campaigns.

Many of the volunteers, as already indicated, rose to the command of divisions, a few to the command of corps, and in some marked instances to the command of separate armies and to the military direction of vast districts.

At the same time the value of strict military training was shown by the superior prominence attained in proportion to their numbers by the officers who had been educated at the West Point Military Academy.

They imparted to the entire army the discipline, the organization, and the efficiency of a regular military establishment.

Without maintaining a large military establishment, which besides its expense entails multiform evils, it was shown that the Republic possesses in the strong arms and patriotic hearts of its sons an unfailing source of military power.

A military autocracy controlling people who were engaged in the ordinary avocations of life was altogether contrary to his views of expediency, altogether repugnant to his conceptions of right.

What we do want is the conclusive evidence that respectable citizens of Louisiana are willing to be members of Congress and to swear support to the Constitution, and that other respectable citizens are willing to vote for them and send…

To send a parcel of Northern men here as representatives, elected as would be understood (and perhaps really so) at the point of the bayonet, would be disgraceful and outrageous.

Thomas Durant was the spokesman for this large class of men who professed anxiety for the fate of the Union but were unwilling to do any thing to aid in saving it.

Would you drop the war where it is, or would you prosecute it in the future with elder-stalk squirts charged with rose-water?

Would you deal lighter blows rather than heavier ones?

Would you give up the contest leaving every available means unapplied?

There must be a test by which to separate the opposing elements so as to build only from the sound, and that test is a sufficiently liberal one which accepts as sound whoever will make a sworn recantation of his former unsoundness.

The wonder excited by the raising of the vast army which saved the Union from destruction was even surpassed by the wonder excited by its prompt and peaceful dissolution.