One
Sees At A Glance The Tyranny Of All This In Such A Country As The
States.
One can understand how quickly adverse stories would
spread themselves as to the opinion of any man who chose to remain
tranquil at such a time.
One shudders at the absolute absence of
true liberty which such a passion throughout a democratic country
must engender. But he who has observed all this must acknowledge
that that passion did exist. Dollars, children, progress,
education, and political rivalry all gave way to the one strong
national desire for the thrashing and crushing of those who had
rebelled against the authority of the stars and stripes.
When we were at Dixon they were getting up the Dement regiment.
The attempt at the time did not seem to be prosperous, and the few
men who had been collected had about them a forlorn, ill-
conditioned look. But then, as I was told, Dixon had already been
decimated and redecimated by former recruiting colonels. Colonel
Dement, from whom the regiment was to be named, and whose military
career was only now about to commence, had come late into the
field. I did not afterward ascertain what had been his success,
but I hardly doubt that he did ultimately scrape together his
thousand men. "Why don't you go?" I said to a burly Irishman who
was driving me. "I'm not a sound man, yer honor," said the
Irishman; "I'm deficient in me liver." Taking the Irishmen,
however, throughout the Union, they had not been found deficient in
any of the necessaries for a career of war.
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