It was a war such as the world never before witnessed; it was fought by such armies as never before were marshaled on the field. But the end has come. These great armies have returned covered with honor and laureled with renown. They are merged again in the business and activities of life; they have disappeared from view like the snow in springtime, or the dew of the morning in the {361}summer's sun; now and then the halting step upon the sidewalk, here and there an empty sleeve, remind us in our daily walks of the stern realities of war. After war, peace! Peace to the dead. Peace through their labors to the living. These “have fought their last fight,” the salvos of artillery which soon shall sound from the guns they loved so well shall not awake them. The grass shall grow green in springtime, the birds of summer shall sing their sweetest notes, the bright glories of autumn shall tint the foliage above them, and the white snow of winter shall lie unbroken on their graves, but these shall sleep on in peace. Peace, white-robed and olive-crowned, has come to us who linger. Peace, with its cares and toils, peace, with its plenty and prosperity, peace, with its duties for to-day and its destinies for to-morrow. Let us welcome it and become worthy of it. Let there be in all our lives, thoughts, hopes, endeavors, such devotion to duty as called and sent these brave men to the battlefield and sustained them there; and then we may safely leave our future to the care of those who, coming after us, shall pause, amid the ruins time may make, to trace upon the marble in our cemeteries the names of the heroic dead. God gives us peace! Not such as lulls to sleep, But sword on thigh and brows with purpose knit. And let our Ship of State to harbor sweep, Her ports all up! Her battle lanterns lit! And her leashed thunders gathered for their leap. THE UNION SOLDIER. ROBERT G. INGERSOLL.