hips were sunk, growing crops were trampled into the earth.
And last of all came that horrid murder of our good and great President
Lincoln, one of the best and noblest men who ever sat in the
presidential chair. Such is war--the most frightful thing we can think
of or talk about. Some of my young friends may like to play soldier; but
if they should grow up and get to be real soldiers they would find out
what war means. Now, if we look again at the picture of our history, we
shall see a great bright space of peace following the dark space of the
Civil War. That is what I wish to tell you about now--the reign of
peace, when everybody was busy at work in building up what had been torn
down by the red hand of war, and our country grew faster than it had
ever grown before.

There is one thing I must say here. I have told you that slavery was the
cause of the war. If there had been no slaves in the country there would
have been no war. And the one good thing the war did for us was to get
rid of the slaves. President Lincoln declared that all the slaves should
be free, and since that time there has not been a slave in the land. So
we can never have a war for that cause again.

When the war was done, the soldiers marched back to their homes. Their
old battle-flags, rent and torn by bullets, were put away as valued
treasures; their rusty rifles, which had killed thousands of men, were
given back to the government; they took up their axes, they went into
the fields with their ploughs, they entered the workshops with their
tools, and soon they were all at work again, as if they had never seen a
field of battle.

This took place long before any of my young readers were born. But there
are many old soldiers living who took part in it, and when you see the
veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic, marching with their ragged
flags and battle-scarred faces, it may bring to you some vision of what
they have seen, and make you think of the fallen comrades they left
behind, dead or bleeding upon the battle-field.

During your short lives there has been no war which came near to us in
our homes. The angel of peace has spread her white wings over our land,
and plenty and prosperity have been the rule. None of our young folks
have known what it is for an army of soldiers to march past their homes,
destroying and burning, and leaving ashes and ruins where there had been
happy homes and fertile fields. But in the past of our country this