The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1894-04-19
TMENTY-NINE YEARS.

| was SUBSTANTIALLY ofSIs
| Lee had surrendered at Appomattox
10 days before, and Joe Johnston, COM
handing the second next most formidable
rebel army, was haggling with Sherman
about terms for its surrender, which took
place the following week. The whole
of the Confederacy east of the Missis-
sippi had for weeks been falling into
our hands as fast as our troops could
march. Mobile, its last open seaport,
had yielded after a brilliant series of
operations by the Army of the Gulf.
Gen. Wilson, at the head of magnifi-
cent cavalry command, had swept
through the very vitals of the Confed-
eracy, taking its first capital and its
great arsenals and factories at Selma,
Ala, and May 10 captured even the
fugitive so-called President of the So
called Confederacy. Another cavalry
command, under SLOVENIAN, was sweep
ing everything before it in western
North Carolina aud southwestern Vir-
ginia. The whole massive structure of
ambition and treason, which had been
maintained for four long years Of des-
perate fighting by 100000 superb sol
diers, had crumbled everywhere, and
almost at once, under the terrific blows
of the stalwart defenders of the Union.
The Nation, which had gone through
long agony of alarms by day and
teTors by night, of sickening fears of
the subversion of the Government and
the ruin of every property interest; of
daily dread of more slaughter, more de-
feats, more waste of life and treasure
more bitter mourning in thousands of
homes, more lavish expenditure of the
country's manhood upon the field of
battle, breathed at last that great, deep
sigh Of relief which went up from every
Jewish heart when the Angel of the
Lord smote the hosts of Sennacherib.
To those who had won this great
browning mercy of victorious peace, of
the triumphant assertion of the Nations
supremacy over every foot of its terri
tory; who had laid deep, and firmly
cemented with their blood, the founda-
tons of an unexampled happiness and
prosperity, which everyone foresaw must
follow, the gratitude of the people knew
no bounds. 1t was freely conceded that
everything that the people had gained
was owed to them. While the memory
of the perils from which they had de-
ivered the Nation was fresh, nothing
that could be given them was equal to
what they merited.
As the victors marched up Pennsyl-
vania avenue in the Grand Review, they
read the thought of the grateful Nation
written in large letters upon the columned
marble of the stately Capitol:
"THE ONLY DEBT THE Ma
TION NEVER CAN PAY rs THAT
WHICH 1T OWES ITS GALLANT
SAWoRS."
Who would have thought then that %
years later between 100000 and 70O,-
900 would still be imploring the Gov
eminent to pay them the meager little
sums which its laws stipulated they
should have?
What an ill-boding, malignant croaker
he would have been thought who, stand
ing on the steps of the Capitol, and
watching that mighty host, fresh from
its victories over every enemy of the
Government, sweep along in resistless
strength, would have predicted that 80
years later these same men, bowed with
age and trembling in every limb, would
still be begging the Government to pay
them the pitiful little sums it owed them,
while a great portion of the press of the
country would be denouncing them as
towards, shirks, deserters, coffee-coolers,
and mercenaries?
What if that same prophet had said
that at the same time the Nation thew
had rescued would grow to be one of the
richest and most powerful on earth, with
mines, marts, manufactures and farms
hot lie,