Year: 1866

y contest is at hand no less vital in i'm
pOrtancc than that in which for nearly five
years You were prominent actors. 1t is
contest involving the same issues which
one year ago you thought were finally clos
ed. You are called upon TO make one
more battle for the cause of your country,
and decide at the ballot-box the questions
which are raised here on behalf of those
YOU so often defeated on Southern fields
You know that while you were fighting the
the battles of your country against open
enemies, a secret and more dangerous foe
was in your rear. You remember how dis
couraging to your hopes and your cause
was any success of that foe at home, and
how your sulferings were prolonged, and
the blood and lives ofbrave men wasted by
every victory it chanced to win at the polls.
No disaster at the hands of open and brave
enemies i'm front, ever did so much to de-
mOralize the Union army, as an election
carried by the Democratic party in the rear.
You are now appealed to by that same par
ty for support. Only two years ago that
party resolved and voted the war failure
and the rebellion a success; it denied your
patriotism; it called you mercenaries and
hirelings Of a despot; it could find nothing
too bitter, no outrage too dastardly, no
crime too wicked to charge upon you; it
could see nothing mournful in your de
feats, nothing cheering in your victories: il
refused you another man or another dollar;
it cOnspired to set free, and arm in the
midst of your families, the thousands of
rebel soldiers captured by your valor, and,
in your absence, to carry the horrors of
war TO the homes you had left in peace; it
denied you, while absent fighting your
country's battles, any voice in the elections.
And now, in the face of all this, this same
Democratic party, before its slanders are
cold, appeals to you to save il by your
votes from an inglorious and deserved de-
feat. 1t asks you, soldiers and sailors of
Indiana, to throw yourself in its arms. 1t
promises you rich reward if you will forget
its abuse, its falsity, and its treason-the
rich reward of committing your interests to
the men who have once proved false to
their oaths, who have fought you on bloody
fields and starved you in prison pens, and
whom it proposes to admit at once, with
out guarantees, into the councils of the ma
ton. Ifyou will now desert the cause for
which you have suffered, if you will repent
your glorious deeds. if you will falsify your
record, and stultify and dishonor your
selves, that party will receive you with
open arms, and admit you to share its own
infamy.


On the other side, is the great and glori
Gus onion party which stood by you and
sustained you during the darkest hours of
the war, which maintained against secret
and conspiring enemies at home, the same


cause you so nobly maintained abroad
On the success of this party depends the
country. If it is defeated now, all is lost
which you fought to gain. What is at is
sue now, is no question of taxation, or tar
iff, or negro suffrage, as the Democratic
party would falsely persuade you The
question is the perinanence of your victo-
ries. Your old enemies, with their North
ern sympathizers, would now win by fraud
what your valor kept them from winring
by force. The energies of treason are be-
ing transferred to the political contest here.
To retain your glory, you must act with
the same vigilance, concert and vigor with
which you won it. The decision of this
contest against the Union men who have
so long sustained the Government, win
make it better that the war had never been
waged against rebellion. If your names
are then retained upon the pension rolls, it
will be alongside those of your Southern
brethren" who fought you with such des-