Daily union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1865-1866, 1865-12-13
Inhn Rnu ON America.

The nations abroad are struck with amaze
ment at the rapidity with which our country
RECEIVERS itself from the effects of the tremen-
dous conflict through which we have lately
passed, and the ease with which our people
accept and accommodate themselves to the
altered circumstances produced by sudden
exchange of war for peace. As specimen
of the impression it makes upon them, we
annex the conclusiori-of an article on Cen
eral Robert E. Lee, from the London Daily
Telegraph, which pays an earnest and glow
ing tribute to the acknowledged high and
noble qualities of that distinguished man.
The old order changes, giving place to new,
and our English contemporary is filled with
admiration at seeing the late Commander
in-Chief of the Confederate Army-whose
word was the supreme law for a
hundred thousand fighting men-at
once dofing his gray uniform for the garb
Of peaceful professor, and quietly entering
upon his duties as the honored head of a
College, where he will heceforth devote
himself by honest and patient labor to pre-
pare the young for the nobler "battle of
life" 1t is, indeed, sublime sight; and of
the many similar instances, though less
grand and striking in their appearance, the
Telegraph thus speaks:
Marvellous, indeed despite the troubles which
remain, Is the spectacle presented by America af-
ter Der mighty struggle The shiftiest and most
deXterOus Of races, If not the strongest, Yam
kee friends are falling, as if by some natural law
Of gravitaton, into their proper places and there
Is something really wonderful in their versatility
The general, telling his wife to take care of his
epaulettes, quietly turns lawyer merchant; the
soldier goes back TO the farm or the loom;
and two mighty armies have, hitherto
scarcely shown a sign of disorder during the
trying time of dlsbandment. The explanation of
all this must not be sought in institutions" or
" constitutions" but in those grand natural ca
pacities of the land itself which no labor or wit Of
man created, which no violence Of man could al
together destroy. In that immense continent
there is room for all; and no one with any real
capacity has long to wait before he finds his place.
Few other countries could have sustained the re
cent contest without utter ruin; in America the
wounds are healing almost before the swords are
sheathed. For let US forget, as we contemplate
the significant scene of Generals devoting them
selves to civil pursuits that the national charac
ter must have been potently affected by the events
Of the last five years. Many Of life's most impor-
tant lessons can only be learned through the stern
discipline of battle; and people which had never
passed through the lurid cloud of desolation and
of death might indeed have riOted in all the inso-
lent extravaganza of material prosperity but
would never have beer, in the high meaning of the
term, nation. 1t is unphilOsOphical 60 believe
the American character has been radically altered;
it Is not less unphilOsOphical to assume that
il has not been greatly modified. The old forms of
action, the old political organizations the old par
~ Names may yet survive; but q new spirit has
been breathed into them all. On the race as on
the individual, the charm has worked and we shall
probably, for the future, find graver and more
serious tone in the cOuntrymen of that testing
President who. by sheer honesty of meaning had
acquired statesman reputation when he perish
ed by martyrs death; and of that Southern tai
Tor from Tennessee who has already approved
himself skiliul and resOlute ruler Lees ma
turc underwent no change; it simply retains its
serene nobility. For the rest "let the dead bury
their dead" Our business is with the present and
the future. The signs Of war, though they cannot
utterly disappear, may fade away with singular
Tapidity in that young land where all things grow
so swiftly, from corn and maize up TO men and wo-
men,. The traveller on the prairies of the West
camping amid the long luXuriant grass may almost
smile, as the guide tells him how on that very spot
the Indians fought-hOw he might yet find traces
Of the conflict in rusty tOmahaWk and in broken
bow: 1t was not a long time ago but meanwhile
the land is very rich, and the grass is very green