nswers, "Well, well!
A couple of more contracts and he will die worth a million." For any
manufacturer to obtain a government contract was for that man to be on
the highroad to wealth.

Yet the historians who analyze these reports find a large amount of
exaggeration in the statements. Some waste there was, but the
authorities seem to think that it was the waste of inexperience for the
most part. When the war opened the Navy Department was spending
$1,000,000 a year. By 1862 it was spending $145,000,000, and with no
organization to handle such enormous interests. In general, in view of
the sudden emergency thrust upon the people, the marvel is not that
there was so much corruption among government contractors, but that
there were so many honest contractors, and that there was so little
waste through inexperience.

In general it may be said that the moral and religious sentiment of both
North and South alike steadily strengthened during the conflict. After
Gettysburg, the Southern people and army, always deeply religious, in
their distress turned to their fathers' God for support. Jackson and
Lee's men fought by day, and held prayer-meetings by night. In the
North, during 1861 and '62 and '63, religious meetings were held all
over the land. When the winter twilight fell, the candles began to burn
in the little schoolhouses, where the farmers assembled and prayed to
God. In the small towns and tiny villages the little churches were
packed with worshippers, not simply on Sundays but during the evenings
of the week. During this interval the layman became as influential as
the ordained preachers. At this time, the Young Men's Christian
Association took its rise, all of the old men saw visions, and all of
the young men dreamed dreams, and many a Saul was found among the
prophets. Poets like Lowell were moved by deeply religious
inspirations. During the war Whittier wrote his loftiest songs and his
noblest and most exalted prayers. The influence of the great conflict
upon philosophers like Emerson is easily traced. American literature
lost its note of unreality. Preaching became practical. There was a
revival of ethics in politics. The war cleared the atmosphere of the
country by sweeping away slavery with all its foundation of lies.

Wendell Phillips once said the French Revolution was the greatest and
most unmixed blessing of the last one thousand years. Now that it is all
over, and the slain soldiers and the brave women w