The Annals of the Civil War Written by Leading Participants North and South
Alexander Kelly McClure, Ed.

[167] mothers were not neglected. Every care was taken that all moral influences should be placed around the men. Everything was done that would in any way contribute to the comfort and well-being of the men engaged in the service of the country; and, while no amount of attention will remove the sufferings and hardships that go with war, yet it was found to be possible to ameliorate some of their sufferings and to provide for the living. The State of Pennsylvania again, through the recommendation of Governor A. G. Curtin, who was as ready to recommend the care of all sufferers by the war as he was to urge by his eloquent voice the people to arms in defense of the nation, provided for the education and sustenance of the orphan children of dead soldiers. This noble institution has done a great work, and many will rise to call the State blessed.

From a quiet, peaceful people, but little interested in the world's progress, innocent of a knowledge of the arts of war, cultivating the soil, digging in the mines, melting the ore, handling goods-though these were done with little profit-quietly awaiting better times, with ill — will to no nation or section of our own country, with confidence in the perpetuity of the government, and faith in its power, though unseen, to protect them, if needed, with their schoolhouses and churches conveniently placed and well attended; from this state of almost pastoral quiet they had been awakened on one Sabbath morning in April, 1861, and in a year they are a restless, nervous people, thoroughly absorbed in a great civil war, accounts reaching them daily, and almost hourly, of a success here, or a defeat there, with the lives of their friends, their relatives-brothers, sons, husbands at peril; this people talk and think of war, its management, its strategies, its losses, and its honors, as though they had been students of war all their lives. Those at home are at work for those in the field or on the sea; the women prepare bandages, and nurse the sick and wounded in place of the lighter employments of a home-life. The people have learned what it is to support the government, and their means are poured out in its defense; for if their government fails, they see but little hope for the future. The children in the school-houses are taught about war; the playful drill of the boys, the play-gun and cannon, are instilling into them what may be the necessities of the future; the girls are as proud of their boy-soldiers as the maiden when the country places its laurel wreath of honor on her beloved. The churches are crowded with thoughtful worshipers, prayers are earnest; there is something to pray for. It is a test of the God they worship — the deliverance of the Israelites from bondage is in their minds, and when the cloud is darkest they