New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1866-12-10

natural complement Of limbs Is the best, simply be-
cause it is natural and although habit may acoustom
the wearer to his succedaneum, he will always be
conscious of the loss which art has merely made
toerable. He may have the power of locomotion,
but not the strength long to continue III and the new
arm which restores his outward appearance may DO
incapable of severe exertiOn. When the best Is done
the loss remains and that loss must be entered upon
the proper side in the account current OF the Rebel
lion.
Blu, there are torn and shattered bodies which are
beyo the reach Of the surgeons hand, and to whom
the icretary Of Var can send no assistance. Iney
sleep peacefully enough in the fOrty-one military
cemeteries of the Nation-one hundred and four
thousand five hundred and twenty.sx Of them-and
every molderng body represents human life which,
before the Rebellion, was useful active and productive
There are more TO come and the number will probably
be increased to two hundred and forty-nine thousand
three hundred and ninety-seyen. To these must DO
added the remains Of those who were buried else
where What a harvest Of death What az e1pendi-
ture Of the virility Of the land What draft upon
the production of the future What diminution Of
the real wealth of the country But putting aside the
cold calculations of the economist, every reader oil
ordinary sensibty will recall the mental and physi'
cal suffering tho beresyement5 the untimey depar'
ture Of the dead and the long and sharp sorrow OF the
surviving-Of wives of children, Of sweethearts, to
whom the telegram or the letter bore in
telligence, which, if il did not palsy their souls,
at least changed the whole tonor of their lives, add
while il darkened oil their future, left them possibly
selfdependent and alone in bleak and busy world!
There are wounds which pensions do not heal and
wants which tho Government, however generous,
cannot supply. All the laws in the world cannot give
back the son to his widowed mother, or restore the
husband to the arms Of his lonely wife, There is and
can be no record in the War Department of broken
hearts-there ia no bureau Of blighted hopes, no
Secretary to compute the signs and tears the days OF
Distress the seepess nights or the false and knocking
dreams Of whom the red hand of war, stretch
ing from the far-of battlefield has remorselessly
smiten, upon the very hearth-stone of blasted home
with all its tender recolections and may be- stern
material necessities. The Government places little
iron monument at the head Of the soldiers grave; it
pensions his widow aud provides for bis children
Can it do more Yes, more much more! 1t can
remember in all its Wanted policy, in all its law
making IN ali us care Oh the present. anu III III i's
provision for the future how much the very oppor-
tunity Of doing anything has cost u.s. and by what
sacrifices We have earned the right and the power to
shape the destnies of the Republic and to make il
indeed the guardian of all its children against every
form Of oppression. We want no wasted lives We
want no gratutous mortality. We want steady re-
membrance of the past, unyexed by revengeful
memories and perpetuAed hatreds but always fresh
when principles at stake, social equities again
endangered SO much is due to those who have suf
fered and to those who have died.