war. On the twenty-third and twenty-fourth of May, in perfect
weather, and in the stirring presence of a loyal, vast,
enthusiastic throng, the Union armies were reviewed in
Washington. For over six full hours each day the troops marched
past--the very flower of those who had come back victorious. The
route was flagged from end to end with Stars and Stripes, and
banked with friends of each and every regiment there. Between
these banks, and to the sound of thrilling martial music, the
long blue column flowed--a living stream of men whose bayonets
made its surface flash like burnished silver under the glorious
sun.


Then, when the pageantry was finished, and the volunteers that
formed the vast bulk of those magnificent Federal armies had
again become American civilians in thought and word and deed,
these steadfast men, whose arms had saved the Union in the field,
were first in peace as they had been in war: first in the
reconstruction of their country's interrupted life, first in
recognizing all that was best in the splendid fighters with whom
they had crossed swords, and first--incomparably first--in
keeping one and indivisible the reunited home land of both North
and South.



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Thousands of books have been written about the Civil War; and
more about the armies than about the navies and the civil