an blood
flowed as freely as festal wine; there was the dense forest, the
under-growth barring the passage of man, the upper-growth shutting out
the light of heaven; ammunition-trains exploding, the woods afire, the
dead roasted in the flames, the wounded dragging their mangled limbs
after them to escape its ravages, until it seemed that Christian men had
turned to fiends, and hell itself had usurped the place of earth.
[Applause.]

And when success perched upon our banners, when the bugle sounded the
glad notes of final and triumphal victory, the disbanding of that army
was even more marvellous than its organization. It disappeared, not as
the flood of waters of the spring, which rend the earth, and leave havoc
and destruction in their course; but rather, as was once eloquently
said, like the snows of winter under a genial sun, leaving the face of
Nature untouched, and the handiwork of man undisturbed; not injuring,
but moistening and fructifying the earth. [Applause.] But the mission of
the Citizen Soldier did not end there, it has not ended yet. We have no
European enemy to dread, it is true; we have on our own continent no
foeman worthy of our steel; for, unlike the lands of Europe, this land
is not cursed by propinquity. But we must look straight in the face the
fact that we have in our midst a discontented class, repudiated alike by
employers and by honest laborers. They come here from the effete
monarchies of the old world, rave about the horrors of tyrannous
governments, and make no distinction between them and the blessings of a
free and independent government. They have, but a little while ago,
created scenes in which mob-law ruled the hour, riot held its sanguinary
sway, and the earth of our streets tasted the blood of our citizens.
When such scenes as these occur, we cannot wait for aid from the crews
of vessels in the offing, we cannot look for succor to the army
garrisons of distant forts; but in our great cities--those plague spots
in the body politic--we want trained militia who can rally as rapidly as
the long roll can be beaten. And I know that all property-owners feel
safer, that all law-abiding citizens breathe freer, when they see a
militia, particularly like that in our own State, go forth in the summer
to be inured to the hardships of the march, to the discipline of
tent-life in the field, exhibiting an _esprit de corps_, a discipline, a
true touch of the elbow, which is beyond all praise. I love