But alas! “how soon we are forgot.” Not a quarter of a century has passed and gone, and all the glorious memories and still more glorious deeds of the great war are as “a tale that is told.” The men who then “rallied around the flag” are growing old, and seem, at times, to have outlived their age. The far-away days that are so real and so vivid to them, are a dim and misty past to the new generations. They hear and read and see many things that wound them as did the bullets of their country’s foes. This practical, pushing era looks askance when they “fight their battles o’er.” The old stories of march, and camp, and battle-field, so full of never-ending interest to them, fall on dull ears and cold hearts unless they are told at some reunion or camp-fire where only their old comrades hear, and sympathize, and understand. At times it seems to them as if the Nation exulted in forgetfulness; as if the thousands of their countrymen, enjoying the peace and prosperity their valor won, regarded it as a crime to talk of the war; as if the men of to-day esteemed their victory over armed treason a moral wrong, to be regretted and apologized for, rather than a glory to be cherished and remembered forever. They find the children at school—even their own sons and daughters—reading histories in which the heroism, the love of country, and the military genius of Greek, Roman, French, German and English soldiers and generals are eulogized in eloquent and fervid language, while the valor, the patriotism, the skill and ability of the soldiers and commanders of the Union army are “damned with faint praise,” or dismissed with the most meager statement of facts. They hear cruel sneers about “the old-soldier racket,” and loud complaints concerning “the burden of the pension lists.” And, most grievous of all to their sore hearts, they see men whose bullets laid their comrades low in death, men who waged a bloody and relentless war against the life of the Nation, men who were glad when the Union army suffered defeat and mourned when it was victorious—they see these men exalted to high places, and honored above those who suffered, endured, and braved so much that the Republic might live. It is not strange, in view of all these things, that the soldiers of the Union often think themselves forgotten, and cry out, in bitter grief, that their sacrifices and services were all in vain.