nties to volunteers, and
thus, in every way, the burdens of the war are voluntarily assumed by
the people, and to some extent distributed among them, so that every one
may participate in the patriotic work. Nor is this large-hearted
liberality confined solely to our own country. The sufferers in other
lands, who have felt the disastrous effects of our great civil war, have
not been forgotten. In the midst of a life-and-death struggle among
ourselves, we have found time and means to assist in relieving their
wants--an exhibition of liberality peculiar, and truly American in
character.

Nor are these the only interesting features in the bearing of the
American people at the present crisis. Perhaps a still more remarkable
one is the entire devotion of the national energies--of intellect not
less than of heart, of skill, not less than of capital--to the great
purposes of the war. This was the necessary result of our free
institutions; of our untrammelled pursuits; the mobility of our means
and agencies of production; and the plastic character of all our
creations. The amount of thought expended on this subject has been
prodigious and incalculable. It would be difficult, if not impossible,
to enumerate the ten thousand inventions and devices of all kinds which
have been presented for the purpose of increasing the efficiency of
weapons and of all the appliances of war, as well as for adding to the
comfort and securing the health of the soldier. Every imaginable
instrument of usefulness in any of the operations of the camp, or the
march, or the field of battle, has been the subject of tentative
ingenuity, such as none but Yankees could display. The musket, the
carbine, the pistol, have been constructed upon numberless plans,
apparently with every possible modification. The cartridge has been
covered with copper, impervious to water, instead of paper, and has its
own fulminate attached in various modes. Cannon shot and shells have
been made in many new forms; and cannons themselves have been increased
in calibre to an extraordinary size with proportionate efficiency, and
have been constructed in various modes and forms never before conceived.
The tent, the cot, the chest, the chair, the knife and fork, the stove
and bakeoven, each and every one of them, have been touched by the
transforming hand of homely genius, and have assumed a thousand
unimaginable forms of usefulness and convenience. India rubber and every
other availabl