The Soldiers' journal. (Rendezvous of Distribution, Va.) 1864-1865, 1864-02-24
Soldiers After the War.


Macaulay, in the portion of his history relating
to the state of English society at the close of the
great Revolution, touches ON q subject curiously
paraleled in our own times Speaking of the
fears that were then entertained as to the result
of dsbanding CromwelPs army and throwing it's
unruly elements back into society, he says
"The troops were now to be disbanded. Fifty
thousand men, accustomed to the profession of
arms were at once thrown on the world, and
perience seemed to warrant the belief that this
change would produce much misery and crime
that the discharged veterans would be seen beg
cling in every street, would be driven by hun
ger to pillage. But such result followed Tn q
fen months there remained not trace indicating
thot the most formidable army IN the aoortd had
iatSt been absorbed into the of the c08lnaaty
The royalists themselves confessed that, in every
department of honest industry, the discarded
warriors prospered beyond other men that none
was heard to ask an aims; and that, if baker,
a mason, or wagner attracted notice by his
diligence and sobriety, he aOds, IN all probability,
of OGiver's Old soldiers
Precisely the same gloomy representations in
regard to our own armies used to be rife, and are
still INDUCED in by an occasional foreign or do
nestle Maworm But they will be just as much
and as happily disappointed as were the appre-
tensions regarding CromwelPs men; for not
only are the very same causes operative with us,
to work the quiet absorption of the military ee-
ments into the body polite, but there are new
and peculiar influences making in the same di-
rection. But, indeed we are not left to mere
theorizing in the matter; the behavior of the
volunteers during the Burroughs they have been
ENJOYING gives us foretaste of the kind of citi~
zens our soldiers will make after the war. Now
though the various cities of the North have lately
been receiving great influx of returned veter-
ans, it does not appear that the barometer of
crime shows any sudden rise, or that the police
find their duties any the heavier in consequence.
Not only have there been no grave crimes on the
part of these men, but tits surprising to find how
little we see of such minor offences as drunken
ness, rowdyism, etc., which might have been ex-
pected from so many soldiers suddenly released
from the restraints of military decipline, and
" flush with their bounties. The fact is that
the whole story of the lawlessness engendered
by military service is pure fiction, There is no
habit acquired by the soldier, os soldier, which
does not tend to make him the better citizen.
we believe that even the "poor white trash
that have formed the bulk of the Southern ar
mics. will be all the worthier fellow citizens for
the training they have had in military life. 1t
has put a little manhood into them. And if true
of them, it is still truer of those who have been
elevated and ennobled by a share in the war for
the Union. Society will absorb these men as
quietly into its bosom did England with Old
Noll,s troopers, and we expect society will be
improved by the infusion.--New York Times.
THE SOUTH AND SLAvERY.--The New Orleans
Times in an article on the future prospect of the