The National Guard.
The people of this city ought to be a military people — and they are. They have seen little else but war and its emblems for near three years, and heard for days and weeks at a time little else save the thunders of cannon.
The sounds of battle, too, constantly admonished them that while
Richmond was struck at by the enemy because he considered it a vital point of the rebellion, yet they and their property, their homes, their families, and their household gods, were incidentally the stake in dispute.
Defeat of our arms they know would bring upon them woes untold and indescribable.
Victory on our side would protect them and drive off the brutal hordes that pressed forward to glut the worst of passions upon their devoted city.
Such scenes, such events, so involving their dearest rights and personal safety, were well calculated to fill their souls with the strongest emotions, and to prepare them for the exhibition of a courage and manhood worthy of the inhabitants of a city thus brought to the notice of the whole world and the object of universal solicitude.
That such was their effect, we know.
No people, not more severely tried, ever exhibited a greater degree of patient fortitude and calm determination than have the people of
Richmond during the long days and nights of their peril.
Had disaster subjected them to a severer ordeal we have no doubt they would have been equal to it.
But their past trials should not only have educated them to endurance and high resolutions, but should have fitted them the better to resist the threatening dangers that may come in the future.
And it is really a matter for felicitation to them all that at least we are in the way to accomplish this.
The practical proposition of the regular enrollment and arming and frequent drilling of the arms bearing portion of the citizens is the wisest and best mode that could be devised to give efficiency to those qualities they possess so eminently, and which would make them so powerful in resisting assault upon their city.
The proposition has been met with alacrity, and we shall soon have a local National Guard that will be able alone to defend
Richmond against a considerable force.
They make no great sacrifice in the maintenance of this organization, and they acquire to themselves invaluable practical knowledge in case of danger.
Thus organized, with the advantage of being promptly called out and knowing where to go, whose orders to obey; and what to do, they can be of incomparably more force and effect in repelling assault than if hurrying to the field without order a mere mob.
The organization being begun, it is to be hoped it will be continued perseveringly.
If the day for trial should come, we shall see the National Guard of
Richmond handing down a name in history that will make brighter the fame and glory of the city itself.