eming with ideas and fertile in
plans of enterprise; given to the culture of the arts; eager in the
pursuit of wealth, yet employing wealth less for ostentation than for
developing the resources of their country; seeking happiness in the
calm of domestic life; and such lovers of peace, that for generations
they had been reputed unwarlike. Now, at the cry of their country in
its distress, they rose up with unappeasable patriotism; not
hirelings--the purest and the best blood in the land. Sons of a pious
ancestry, with a clear perception of duty, unclouded faith and fixed
resolve to succeed, they thronged around the President, to support the
wronged, the beautiful flag of the nation. The halls of theological
seminaries sent forth their young men, whose lips were touched with
eloquence, whose hearts kindled with devotion, to serve in the ranks,
and make their way to command only as they learned the art of war.
Striplings in the colleges, as well the most gentle and the most
studious, those of sweetest temper and loveliest character and
brightest genius, passed from their classes to the camp. The lumbermen
from the forests, the mechanics from their benches, where they had
been trained, by the exercise of political rights, to share the life
and hope of the republic, to feel their responsibility to their
forefathers, their posterity and mankind, went to the front, resolved
that their dignity, as a constituent part of this republic, should
not be impaired. Farmers and sons of farmers left the land but half
ploughed, the grain but half planted, and, taking up the musket,
learned to face without fear the presence of peril and the coming of
death in the shocks of war, while their hearts were still attracted to
their herds and fields, and all the tender affections of home.
Whatever there was of truth and faith and public love in the common
heart, broke out with one expression. The mighty winds blew from every
quarter, to fan the flame of the sacred and unquenchable fire.

For a time the war was thought to be confined to our own domestic
affairs, but it was soon seen that it involved the destinies of
mankind; its principles and causes shook the politics of Europe to the
centre, and from Lisbon to Pekin divided the governments of the world.

There was a kingdom whose people had in an eminent degree attained to
freedom of industry and the security of person and property. Its
middle class rose to greatness. Out of that class sprung t