sympathies in every bosom, which caused the miser to give freely of his wealth, the wife with eager hands to pack the knapsack of her husband, and mothers with eyes glistening with tears of pride, to look out upon the shining bayonets of their boys; then came the frenzy of impatience and the defeat entailed upon us by rashness and inexperience, before our nation settled down, solidly and patiently, to its work, determined to save itself from destruction; and then followed the long weary years of doubt and mingled fear and hope, until at last that day came six years ago which we now celebrate—­ the day which saw the flood, tide of rebellion reach the high-water mark, whence it never after ceased to recede.  At the moment, probably, none of us, either at home or at the seat of war, realized the grandeur of the situation, the dramatic power of the incidents, or the Titanic nature of the conflict.  To you who were at home, mothers, fathers, wives, sisters, brothers, citizens of the common country, if nothing else, the agony of suspense, the anxiety, the joy, and, too often, the grief which was to know no end, which marked the passage of those days, left little either of time or inclination to dwell upon aught save the horrid reality of the drama.  To others who more immediately participated in those great events, the daily vexations and annoyances—­the hot and dusty day —­the sleepless, anxious night—­the rain upon the unsheltered bivouac—­the dead lassitude which succeeded the excitement of action —­the cruel orders which recognized no fatigue and made no allowance for labors undergone—­all these small trials of the soldier’s life made it possible to but few to realize the grandeur of the drama to which they were playing a part.  Yet we were not wholly oblivious of it.  Now and then I come across strange evidences of this in turning over the leaves of the few weather-stained, dogeared volumes which were the companions of my life in camp.  The title page of one bears witness to the fact that it was my companion at Gettysburg, and in it I recently found some lines of Browning’s noble poem of ‘Saul’ marked and altered to express my sense of our situation, and bearing date upon this very fifth of July.  The poet had described in them the fall of snow in the springtime from a mountain, under which nestled a valley; the altering of a few words made them well describe the approach of our army to Gettysburg.

“Fold on fold, all at once, we crowded thundrously down to your
feet;
And there fronts yon, stark black but alive yet, your army of old
With its rents, the successive bequeathing of conflicts untold. 
Yea, each harm got in fighting your battles, each furrow and scar
Of its head thrust twixt you and the tempest—­all hail, here we
are.”