They died amid the battle clangors of five hundred crimson fields; they died in hospitals where nerves were highways for the steps of fever's scorching feet; they died in dismal prison pens, unshorn, unsheltered, hungering, thirsting, desolate, despairing; they died, four hundred thousand of them died, in the bloom of their beautiful youth, that the slave might be unshackled, freedom apotheosized, the nation saved. They lived--a million of them live to-day. They lived to do men's work in building up the land their valor sanctified. They lived to witness development and prosperity beyond the stretches of their fondest dream. They lived to see a prospective disintegration of the too solid south, her trusted leaders standing with reluctant feet where politics and finance meet. They lived to see South Carolina, cradle of secession, thoroughly reformed by an application of bi-chloride of Tillmanism for the drink habit, and the entire Southern social system thoroughly rejuvenated by an invasion of graceful young Sophomores from Vassar, each with a cogent thesis on the remedy for punctured tires. They have lived to see the sun of Appomattox flood the planet with its warming, brightening beams. They have lived to know that the war's immortal hero, touring around the earth, penetrated no regions so remote that his fame had not preceded him, and visited no populations too ignorant to comprehend the significance of his victories. They have lived to read that in mud-hovels in the deepest heart of Africa, in thatched huts on the banks of the Ganges, in cabins buried among Siberian snows, portraits of Lincoln are found, venerated by benighted peoples as the saint of a new dispensation. They have lived to see the horizon strewn with wrecks of stricken dynasties--crowns crumbling, thrones trembling, the whole filmy remainder of hoary despotisms shriveling like a gossamer scroll. They have lived to see the flag of our republic floating resplendent in the zenith, as a token that the Union lives, and that liberty reigneth forever. THE END. * * * * * The cover design of this volume is reproduced from a drawing in _Edwin Forbes' Army Sketch Book_, with the kind permission of the publishers, Messrs. Fords, Howard & Hulbert. * * * * * JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY'S STORIES OF THE HUMORIST, EDGAR WILSON NYE (BILL NYE) BY RUSSEL M. SEEDS * * * * * JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY'S STORIES OF THE HUMORIST, EDGAR WILSON NYE (BILL NYE) (_Russel M. Seeds' Interview with James Whitcomb Riley in the Indianapolis News._)