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From the Atlantic Monthly. Our Soldiers. We entered gaily our great contest. At tho first sound from Sumter, enthusiasm blazed high and bright. Bells rang out, flags waved, the people rose as one man to cheer on our troops, and the practical American nation, surA T eying it self with astonishment, pronounced itself—finger on pulse—enthusiastic ; and though, in the light of the present steadily burning determination, it has been tho fashion gently to smile at that quick up-springing blaze, and at the times when it was gravely noted how the privates of our army took daily baths and wore Colt's revolA r ers, and pet regiments succumbed under shoAvers of Have locks, in contrast with the grim official reports of to-day,T cannot but think that enthusiasm healthful, and in itself a lesson, if only that it proves beyond question that our patriotism was not simply a dweller on the American tongue, but a thing of tho American heart, so vitalizing us, so woven every day into the most minute ramifications of our living, so inner and recog nized a part of our thinking, that thero have been found some to doubt its existence, just as we half forget the gracious air, because no labor ed gasps, in place of our sure and even breath ing, ever by any chance announoe to us that somewhere there have been error and confusion in its vast workings. Bitterer texts wore ready all too soon. When we hoard how one had fallen, bayoneted at the guns, and another Avas struck, charging pn tho foe, and a third had died after long lingering in the hospital,—when we saAV our brave boys, whom Aye had sent out Avith huzzas, coming back to us with the blood and grime of battle upon them, maimed, ghastly, dying, doad, —wo know that we, whom God had hitherto so blessed that we were compelled to look into tho annals of other nations for misery and strife, had now. com menced a record of our own. Henceforth there was for us a neAV literature, new grooves of thought, neAV interests. By all the love of father, brother, husband, and children, Aye must learn more of this tragic and tender lore ; and our sol diers have been a thought not far from the heart and lips of any one of us, and Avhat is done, or doing, or possible for them, held worthiest of our thought and time. Respecting those, Aye have had all to learn. — True, with us, satisfaction has at all times fol loAved close upon the announcement of a need ; but wisdom in planning and administering is not a marketable commodity, and so we are ed ucating ourselves up to the emergency,—the whole mighty nation at school, and learning, avo are bound to say, with Yankee quickness. Love has been for us also, a marvellous brain-prompt tor. Some of our grandest charities —I mean charities in the broadest and SAveetest sense, for It is Aye Avho owe, not our soldiers—have been tho inspiration of a'moment's need—thoughts of tho people who, in crises and at instance of the heart, think Avell and swiftly. Take this one example. When NeAV England's sons seized their arms, the first to answer the trumpet call that rang out over the land, and went in the spirit of their fa thers to the battle,—when these men passed through Philadelphia, hungry and weary, tho great heart of the city Avent out to meet them.— Citizens brought thorn into their houses, the neighboring shops gave gladly what they could, women came running with food snatched from thoir own tables, and even little squallid children toddled out of by-lanes and alleys with loaves and half-loaves, all that thoy had to give, so did the whole people yearn over their defenders; and then it was soon how other regiments would come to them, ready for the fray, but dusty and way-Avorn, and hoAv the ambulances would bring them back parched and fainting, and—it was hardly known, lioav, only that, as in old times, " the people Avere of one mind and one accord," and brought of such things as thoy had ; but on that sad, yet proud day, that brought back to them those that fell in Baltimore on the memor able nineteenth of April,—the heroes in whom all claim a share, and tho right to say, not only Massachusetts' dead and wounded, but ours— there was ready for them a shelter in the unpre tending building famous since as the Cooper Shop. There the people croAvded about them, weeping, blessing, consoling; and from that day there has no regiment, from New England, New York, or any other State, been suffered to pass through Philadelphia unrefreshod. Water was supplied them, and tables ready spread, by the Volunteer Corps ahvays in attendance, within five minutes after the firing of tho gun that an nounced their arrival. There Avas shortly added also, a volunteer hospital for the more danger ously wounded when first brought from the bat tle-field, and of it is told a story that Americans will like to hear, It is of a Wisconsin soldier, who, taken pris oner, effected his escape from Richmond. Hi ding by day, he forced his Avay at night through morass and forest, snatched such sleep as he dar ed on the damp and sodden earth, went without food whole days, reached our lines bruised, torn, shivering, starving, and his wounds, which had never properly been carod for, opened afresh.— Let him tell tho rest, straight from his heart: '' When I had my rubber blanket to wrap about me, I was comfortable, and, snug and warm in the cars, I tho light myself happy; and when I heard them talk of the ' Cooper Shop,' I said to myself, • A cooper Shop ! that wiil be the very place of all tho earth, for there I shall haA r e a roof over me, and tho shavings will be so Avarm and dry to lie upon !' but when they carried me in, and I opened my eyes and saAV Avhat was the Cooper Shop, and the long tables all loaded for the poor soldiers, and when they took me to the hospital up-stairs, and placed me in a bed, and real ladies and gentlemen, Avith tears in their eyes came and Availed on me, my manliness left me.' A want of manliness, O honest heart, for which there need be no shame! Precious tribute to our country's love for her sons 1 For this is po sectional charity ; only one example culled from thousands; for the land must, of a necessity, be overshadowed by the tree that has a root under almost every Northern hearth-stone; and then see how Aye are all bound together by the heart strings ! Forty thousand men-at-arms are lookiug gravely at the height towering above the valley la which they stand. " Impregnable " military science pronounced it; but the men scaling it knoAV nothing of this word "impregnable."— They havo heard nothing of an order for retreat, —they are filled with a divine wrath of battle, and each man is as mad as his neighbor, and the officers are poAverless to hold thorn back, and catch the infection and are swept on witli them, and climbing, jumping, slipping, toiling on hands and knees, swinging from tree and bush any way, any lioav, but always onward, never backAvard, they surge up over tho mountain-top, deadly volleys crashing right in among them, and set on the robels with a wild hurrah t and the hearts below boat faster, and rough lips curse the blinding smoke and fog that veil all the crest, and on a sudden a shout, —such a one as the children of Israel gave, when tho high-piled Avails of water bent and swayed and came wav ing and thundering down on Pharoah'a hopeless hosts, —for there, high up in heaven, streaming out through parting smoke, is the flag, torn, blood-stained, ball-riddled, but the dear old red. white, and blue, waving over the enemy's works; and then the telegraph flashed out the braA-e news over the exulting country, and the press took up the story, and women said, with kind ling faces, " My son, or my brother, or my hus band may be dead, but, oh, our boys havo done glorious things at Lookout Mountain!"—and History will tell how a grander charge was never made, and calmly note the loss in dead and woun • ded—so many thousands—and pass on. i But wo are not History, and our dead —well, we will give them graves that shall be OA'er green with laurels, and thoir swords shall be our most precious legacy to our children, and their memo, ries shall be a part of our household ; but our wounded, tor whom there is yet hope, who mm yet live,—the cry goes from Wisconsin, and Maine, and lowa, and New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Massachusetts. Where are they, and how cared for? We are all, as I said, bound by the heart-strings in a common interest. The Bos ton woman with her boy in tho Army of the Cum - borland, and the Maine mother with one in th" army at New Orleans or Texas, and the Kan sas father, a son in the Army of the Potomac, all clamor, "is mine among the wounded, and do care and science for him, all that care and sci ence should ?" The Field Relief Corps of the Sanitary Com - mission are prompt on the battle-field, reaching sufferers even before their oavii surgeons. Said one man, lying there, badly wounded,— " And what do thoy pay yez for this ? What do you get?" " Pay! We ask nothing, only the soldier's 'God bless you.'" " And is that all ? Then sure here's plenty of the coin, fresh minted! God bless you ! God bless you 1 and the good Lord be good to you, and remember ycz as you have remembered us, and love yez and your children after you ; and sure, if that is all, it's plenty of that sort of pay the poor soldier has for you !" God bless such men !we echo; but after thai what then ? Our beloved are taken to tho hospi tals, and we know, in a general way, that hospi. tals aro buildings containing long rows of beds, and that science is doing its utmost in their be> half; but when our friend writes us from across the seas, they tell us not, only how they are, but Avhere,—jotting down little pen-and-ink pictures to show us how stands the writing table, and how hangs the picture, and where is the fauteuil, that we may see them as they are daily} so we crave something more, we feel shut out, wo want to get at their daily living, to know something of hospital life. Hospitals have sprung up as if sown broad cast, and these, too, of no mean order. Truo, in our first haste and inexperience, viciously plan ned hospitals were erected; but these and the Crimean blunders have served us as beacons, and the anxious care of the government has been untiring, the outlay of money and things morn precious unbounded; and those who have had this weighty matter in charge have no reason to foar an account of their stewardship. m * m The Confederate Congress has passed an act issuing tobacco rations to the soldiers in the rob* el armies.