as he watched the battle.  It was the saying of a shrewd observer, but it expresses only an imperfect apprehension of the truth.  Vindictiveness is not the spirit our men should have, but a resoluteness of determination, as much more to be relied upon than a vindictive passion as it is founded upon more stable and more enduring qualities of character.  The worst characters of our great cities may be the fit equals of Mississippi or Arkansas ruffians, but the mass of our army is not to be brought down to the standard of rowdies or the level of barbarians.  The men of New England and of the West do not march under banners with the device of “Booty and Beauty,” though General Beauregard has the effrontery to declare it, and Bishop, now General, Polk the ignorance to utter similar slanders.  The atrocities committed on our wounded and prisoners by the “chivalry” of the South may excite not only horror, but a wild fury of revenge.  But our cause should not be stained with cruelty and crime, even in the name of vengeance.  If the war is simply one in which brute force is to prevail, if we are fighting only for lust and pride and domination, then let us have our “Ellsworth Avengers,” and let us slay the wounded of our enemy without mercy; let us burn their hospitals, let us justify their, as yet, false charges against us; let us admit the truth of the words of the Bishop of Louisiana, that the North is prosecuting this war “with circumstances of barbarity which it was fondly believed would never more disgrace the annals of a civilized people.”  But if we, if our brothers in the army, are to lose the proud distinctions of the North, and to be brought down to the level of the tender mercies and the humane counsels of slaveholders and slave-drivers, there would be little use in fighting.  If our institutions at the North do not produce better, more humane, and more courageous men than those of the South, when taken in the mass, there is no reason for the sacrifice of blood and treasure in their support.  War must be always cruel; it is not to be waged on principles of tenderness; but a just, a religious war can be waged only mercifully, with no excess, with no circumstance of avoidable suffering.  Our enemies are our outward consciences, and their reproaches may warn us of our dangers.

The soldiers of the Northern army generally are men capable of understanding the force of moral considerations.  They are intelligent, independent, vigorous,—­as good material as an army ever was formed from.  A large proportion of them have gone to the war from the best motives, and with clear appreciation of the nature and grounds of the contest.  But they require to be confirmed in their principles, and to be strengthened against the temptations of life in the camp and in the field, by the voice and support of the communities from which they have come.  If the country is careless or indifferent as to their moral standard, they will inevitably become so themselves, and lose the perception of the objects for which they are fighting, forgetting their responsibilities, not only as soldiers, but as good men.  It is one of the advantages of defeat to force the thoughts which camp-life may have rendered unfamiliar back into the soldier’s mind.  The boastfulness of the advance is gone,—­and there is chance for sober reflection.