In what we shall say on this or any other point, no one, we trust, will understand us as asserting that too much credit has been awarded to the soldiers of the Union army for the services they have performed, or too much sympathy and honor been given them for the sufferings they have endured, and the sacrifices they have made for, in our judgment, they have not received their full award of credit, nor their full share of sympathy and honor. We believed that they presented a true state of facts respecting the Revolutionary period, as we know that they possess a marvellous accuracy when applied to ‘the small assemblies of the towns’ of Massachusetts during the late Rebellion. We read these words long years ago and they had become, as it were, fastened upon our memory before the late civil contest had assumed a warlike front. The Continental Congress patriotism shone more conspicuously, it did not there exist more truly, nor burn more fervently it did not render the day more anxious, nor the night more sleepless it sent up no more ardent prayer to God for succor and it put forth in no greater degree the fulness of its effort, and the energy of its whole soul and spirit, in the common cause,-than it did in the small assemblies of the towns.’ The voice of Otis and of Adams, in Faneuil Hall, found its full and true echo in the little councils of the interior towns: and, if within Instances were not unfrequent in which small freeholders parted with their last hoof, and last measure of corn from their granaries, to supply provisions for the troops, and hire service for the ranks. Nowhere can there be found higher proofs of a spirit that was ready to hazard all, to pledge all, to sacrifice all, in the cause of the country. Nobler records of patriotism exist nowhere.
#OBJECT 260 MEN OF WAR 2 HOW TO#
Any one who has had occasion to be acquainted with the records of the New-England towns knows well how to estimate those merits and those sufferings. It has ever been my opinion, however, that, while celebrating the military achievements of our countrymen in the Revolutionary contest, we have not always done equal justice to the merits and the sufferings of those who sustained, in their property and in their means of subsistence, the great burden of the war. My heart beats, I trust, as responsive as any one's to a soldier's claim for honor or renown. ‘I would not be thought to be among those who underrate the value of military service. Webster in a speech made by him in the Massachusetts Convention of 1820 for the amendment of the Constitution of this Commonwealth.
Often during the four years of the late civil war we were reminded of the words of Mr.
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