The National tribune., 1894-12-06
THIRTY YEARS AFTER

The constant affectatl0n OF surprise
by those mfriendly to the veterans that
the pension-roll should be so large 80
wears after the close of the war is an
afTectation of ignorance Of the real his
tory of the war;
They carefully fail to remember
that the war was fought by boys and
very young men. The legal minimum
age of enlistment was Is, but hun
dreds of thousands entered the service
who were scarcely of this age, and a
large number were a year or two below
it. Bearded faces were infrequent
among those who leveled their deadly
muskets at Pickett's advancing column,
or stood with mistaken obstinancy at
Chickamauga. The tolls, the dangers,
the hardships of the campaign against
Vicksburg, and the terrible slaughter of
the Wilderness were borne by men in
the very first flush of young manhood.
None others could possibly have en-
dured all that they endured. They
only endured them by drawing heavily
on their stock of vitality, and these
drafts have now come to maturity with
startling rapidity.
The stout-hearted boy who, 80 years
ago, marched blithely through the frozen
swamps of the Carolinas, who set his
teeth and grimly bore the sleet and hail
of the bleak nights of the Cumberland
Mountains, who thirsted, painted and
perspired, but kept his place in ranks
on the long forced marches, who in the
miasmatic swamps of the Mississippi
stuffed himself with guinine that he
might stand with his comrades in the
decisive charge upon the encmy's works,
is now "a man past middle age, with every
nerve and muscle in his body reminding
him how recklessly he squandered his
young strength in the day when he
should have been knitting his body firmly
for the years when the almond tree should
flourish, and the grasshopper become a
burden, and the grinders cease because
they are few.
Thirty years after the war is the criti-
cal time when it was to be expected that
the pension-roll should be the largest.
The boys who enlisted in 1861 at the
of are Is, were % when the war closed.
They are now nearly 80. If they had
come out Of the war in apparently good
shape they were, by their superior
energy and determination, able to main
tain themselves for score or two of
years in the contests Of life against those
who had not had such exhausting ex-
periences, and against the younger gen
GRAFTON growing up after the war. But
as the years went by the forces of life
failed, and the close of the third decade
would inevitably bring myriad of APP
peals to the Government to fulfill the
promises made at the time of enlist
ment.
The man who, in 1875 at the age of
80, laughed at the idea of pension for
his four years of service, feels very
differently in 1894, at the age Of 50,
when his rheumatic reminders of the
nights be lay in the mud, will no longer
down at the bidding of the dotor's
potions and liniments.
Now is the time of all others for the
Government to help those who saved it.
They have tugged along without its as
sistance until now, when they can do
no more, and their needs are supreme.
Every aspect of the case demands that
the Government act promptly, and with
the largest generosity, instead haggling
meanly and shameIessly over techni
calities and details.
THE wheels of the threatened revo-
luton in Alabama wouldn't 90 round.
They wouldn't even start. AS talker