Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1869-01-29
The Manned Brigade.

Go WHERE you will in all this land, you
will find the members of the Manned Bri.
gade The blue has faded from their
dress, and the brass letters have dropped
from their caps, but there is no mistaking
that they have been soldiers. They have
no need to refer to muster rolls or to ex-
hibit parchment discharges, to prove they
were in the armv. Fifty thousand strong
is the Manned Brigade. They march in
our streets, not with the precision of yore,
but as undaunted still. Brave men Their
limbs are scattered over a dozen States.
They moulder and whiten all the same
fields with the bodies of the patriotic slain
and the hands of the dead may grasp the
dead hands of the living, though the lat
ter be thousand miles from the throb-
bing hearts that once warmed them with
their blood. Fifty thousand men who
have laid some of their limbs upon their
country's alter as sacrifices of liberty move
daily among us. Were they to pass
through the city in regiments, for whole
day from any given point could our eyes
rest upon the columns of the Manned
Brigade A thousand tattered battle-fags
would wave above them, held by one
armed heroes, and many thousand footless
legs would be keeping step to the music
Of the Union. Let us not forget the one.
armed and one-legged soldiers, who form
an army four times as large as the old army
of the United States, and fully as large as
the present. They need not be gathered
together and passed in review before the
people in whose behalf they have suffered
and suffer still, to assert the fact of their
being.
The Government has recognized them,
and given them, as far as they have made
application, pensions and artificial limbs.
But let the people be careful that they do
not forget them. The battle these poor
fellows are now fighting is harder to win
and fraught with more danger than many
battles of the rebellion. Thousands of
stalwart men, lion-hearted and steel
nerved, who stormed Mission Ridge, or
bore down upon the columns of Lee with
out fear, to-day stand appalled, before the
dread squadrons of Winters cavalry. A
pension is but meagre-a very meagre
support, and an artificial limb poor-a
very poor substitute. Let an able-bodied
man, with a family to take care of, ask
himself for what annuity he would swap
an arm or leg. This is the way to test
the validity of the claim the Manned Bri-
gade has upon our consideration.
There are many places these heroic men
can fill as well as anybody. Those who
have but one arm can make good book
keepers those who have but one leg can
make good salesmen; while neither can
plow, nor sow, nor reap to advantage.
Away to the fields and the workshops, you
lily fingered, pale faced, dawdling dandy
behind the dry goods counter, and give
yourp place to disabled defender of your
country in exchange for a mole robust
frame and more certain future compe-
tency. All ye non n-producers who have
perfect limbs. and who took good care all
through the war to keep them so, who are
now occupying paying positions which the
lame soldier can fill as well, prepare to
vacate in his favor. Make way, say we,
for the Manned Brigade. Chicago Post. )