It should not be forgotten that 224,306 soldiers were discharged from the army because of wounds or disease, and that a far larger number, mustered out in seeming good health, had contracted the seeds of disease which will shorten their lives and enfeeble their powers. The Surgeon of my regiment, a learned and experienced physician, once said to me that there was not a man in the Army of the Cumberland who would not ultimately suffer from the effects of the hardships, exposure and privations to which that army was subject. Said he: “Two months of semi-starvation in Chattanooga were followed by the cold and desolate winter campaign in East Tennessee, and that by the alternating rain, heat and fatigue of the campaign against Atlanta; and the strongest and most healthy men in the regiment will some day suffer from the effects of such service.” Within a year I have read accounts of the death of fully a dozen soldiers from the effects of wounds received nearly a quarter of a century ago. About two years since a gallant officer of my own regiment was confined to his bed for several weeks by the reopening of a wound received at Chicamauga, in 1863. These are only isolated instances among thousands, but they fairly illustrate the fact I wish to present, that the effects of the war upon the physical powers of a vast multitude of soldiers are just beginning to be felt. I do not join, and never have joined, with those who assert that the Government and the American people have forgotten the obligations they are under to the men whose patriotism and valor preserved the Republic. As a soldier and an American citizen, I am proud of the fact that this assertion is not true. Occasionally, I know, there have been just grounds of complaint; occasionally it has seemed that the war, and all the noble sacrifices and splendid devotion of our soldiers were like an old, old story, growing stale and uninteresting; and now and then isolated cases can be cited to justify a charge of forgetfulness or ingratitude. But the time has not been, and I trust it never will be, when it can be truthfully said that any appeal in behalf of the disabled, destitute and deserving soldiers of the Union would be unheeded. As evidence of the truth of this statement, this fair, and those held by the Grand Army Posts on the south side during the past three weeks, and the generous patronage the people give to all of them, may be cited.