The only National debt we can never pay is the debt we owe to the men who offered their lives that the United American Nation might live to become the greatest power in the human race. The heroic sacrifices will never be known. It has been variously estimated from three hundred thousand to a million lives. The Government records 44,238 men as having been killed in battle; 49,205 dying of wounds and injuries; 186,216 succumbing to disease; 24,184 expiring from unknown causes; and 526 suicides, homicides and executions. Thousands of men disappeared during the conflict and have never been heard from since. The surgeon-general's records give 280,040 wounded in battle; 184,791 missing or captured; 26,168 dying while prisoners of war. The medical records state that 6,049,648 cases were brought into the hospitals, great numbers of whom were sent home to die. The Confederate losses can never be ascertained but it is very probable that the price that America paid for the preservation of the Union was a million of its manhood. The crisis of 1865 held not only the future of the United States in the balance, but threatened to change the political divisions of the world. The American Nation, which is the "freest, richest and most powerful" nation under the skies, would have been divided into two weakened republics, each struggling for existence, disputing the ownership of rivers and coast, engaged in continual border uprisings, and finally becoming the prey of the powerful nations of Europe--only to be soon devoured by encroaching monarchies of the Eastern Hemisphere. "When 'Greek meets Greek' the tug of war Is sure to follow fierce and strong; What wonder that the bloody strife 'Twixt North and South was four years long! Four hundred thousand of our brave Gave up their lives that we might be A Nation, powerful and great, The fitting home of Liberty. America will surely stand The first and foremost of the earth: The Queen of Nations she shall be, And all her sons have royal birth. [Illustration: FOR THE SAKE OF THEIR COUNTRY--Photograph taken by Brady on the battlefield during the Civil War] "The Goddess of sweet Liberty Still smiles upon her gallant knights Who bravely sprang to her defense, And fearless fought to keep our rights. Then cheer our heroes, grim and old, And let them feel while yet alive, We honor them for what they did From sixty-one to sixty-five. All honor to our sacred dead, And honor well the living, too, Our Veterans of the Civil War, These noble boys who wore the blue."