f should die with the re-establishment of
the Union. Both played for big stakes--one for her billions of slave
property, the other for the forty or more stars in her constellation.
Both put forward her mightiest men of war. Legions were mustered,
marshalled, and thrown in the field, with an earnestness and rapidity
never before witnessed in the annals of warfare. Each chose her
best Captains to lead her armies to battle, upon the issue of which
depended the fate of two nations. The Southern legions were led by
the Lees, Johnstons, Beauregards, Jacksons, Stuarts, Longstreets,
and other great Lieutenants; the North were equally fortunate in her
Grants, Shermans, Thomases, Sheridans, and Meads. In courage, ability,
and military sagacity, neither had just grounds to claim superiority
over the other. In the endurance of troops, heroism, and unselfish
devotion to their country's cause, the North and South each found
foemen worthy of their steel. Both claimed justice and the Almighty
on their side. Battles were fought, that in the magnitude of the
slaughter, in proportion to the troops engaged, has never been
equalled since the days of recorded history; Generalship displayed
that compared favorably with that of the "Madman of the North,"
the Great Frederick, or even to that of the military prodigy of all
time--Napoleon himself. The result of the struggle is but another
truth of the maxim of the latter, that "The Almighty is on the side of
the greatest cannon."

I close my labors with an extract from a speech of one of the Southern
Governors at Chickamauga at the dedication of a monument to the dead
heroes from the State.

"A famous poem represents an imaginary midnight review of Napoleon's
Army. The skeleton of a drummer boy arises from the grave, and with
his bony fingers beats a long, loud reveille. At the sound the legions
of the dead Emperor come from their graves from every quarter where
they fell. From Paris, from Toulon, from Rivoli, from Lodi, from
Hohenlinden, from Wagram, from Austerlitz, from the cloud clapped
summit of the Alps, from the shadows of the Pyramids, from the snows
of Moscow, from Waterloo, they gather in one vast array with Ney,
McDonald, Masenna, Duroc, Kleber, Murat, Soult, and other marshals in
command. Forming, they silently pass in melancholy procession before
the Emperor, and are dispersed with 'France' as the pass word and 'St.
Helena' as the challenge.

"Imagine the resurrection of the two