Cleveland daily leader. [volume] ([Cleveland, Ohio]) 1865-1873, 1865-11-13
Citizen SOIdiery,

1t is a noticeable fact that the destitu-
ton and vagrancy in some ofthe Southern
States do not exist among the disbanded
soldiers lately comprising the rebel armies
The purport of all news from those States
is, that the soldiers generally FASTENED
from their camps and bivouacs to industri-
Gus occupations; and that to their industry
the South is j indebted for the large corn
crop Just harvested. Exceptions there
are; but in general We think the above
represents the case ~truthfully. The same
NAV be said of the Northern soldiers.
During the war, a great many very good
people not in~frequently expressed a fear
that u citizen-soldiery would return to
civil life retaining the acquired vices of
the camp, and so become a disturbing ele-
ment in society. The fear was ~groundless.
All our avenues of trade and industry are
filed with men from off whose garments
the grims Of powder has scarcely been
washed. The Union heroes who waited at
the gates of Richmond, and the travel
worn patriots who swept from the noun
tains of Tennessee to the coast, ars now on
farms in Workshops, offices, stores, machine
shops, and manufactures, quietly and ia
diligently pursuing the great business of
life. War and its attendant excitements
and dangers to the body and soul may
haye become a habit with them, but it Isl
habit they haYe put aside with alaerity.
From the earliest wars to the latest,
such has been the fact. The fierce pas
sions ~engendered by Yar subside with the
cessation of hostilities. The freedom Of
the camp is replaced by the restraints of
society, without the Intervention of the
laws. The hosts of Saracens-half-savage
and lawless, called from their desert life
by an all-pervading religious enthusiasm,
over running half the earth and conquer
ing as much by their frugality and simple
wants, which rendered their mobility
perfect, as by their wild valor-repeopled
the countries they despoiled, and enriched
them by e~xalting the arts of peace. CrOm-
wells Roundheads were a source of pros
pective terror to the English citizen but
in an incredibly short space of time
after their disarmament, they were COM
pletely merged in civil life; indeed, en-
riching society by their return, in%fusing
new rim into all branches of industry.
If there was a skillful mechanic, an intel
ligent, shrewd farm-laborer, a desirable
artisan of any kind, it was morethan likely
he had been one of Cromweils soldiers.
In France, the grand army of Napoleon
did not, rs was predicted, fill the aims
houses with paupers, the jails with Grim
finals, the streets with vagabonds. The
fragments Of that army, saved from the
destruction, re-entered the ranks of the
bourgeois, the working classes, of the
cities, or returned to the cultivation of the
vineyards and other occupations of the
~peasantry from which they had been con-
scripted, fresher for their marches, drawer
for their battles, and more intelligent
than before.
Humanity but repeats itself from one
age to another. What was true in past ages
and other countries, is still more true now
and in this nation. So it always will be,
that the "pomp and circumstance Of glo-
riOus war; only give a greater value to
the unpretending yet self-satisfying pur-