682,117 were over 21 years of age; 1,159,789 were 21 years old and under; 1,151,438 were 18 years old and under; 844,891 were 17 years old and under; 231,051 were 16 years old and under; 104,987 were 15 years old and under; 1,523 were 14 years old and under; 300 were 13 years old and under; 278 were 12 years old and under.
When the Great Struggle began, the United States was the home of less than thirty-two millions of people. Today it has passed eighty millions and the peoples from all the nations of the earth are flooding into our open gates to the extent of more than a million a year. A new community of more than three thousand inhabitants could be founded every day from the men, women and children who disembark from the sea of ships charted to the American shores. There are among us today more than forty-eight millions who have been born here or immigrated into this country since the beginning of the Civil War. These people have no personal knowledge of it and their information is gathered from the narrations of others. These Brady negatives will come as a revelation to them and give a truer understanding of the meaning of it all. The good service they may do for the nation in this one respect cannot be overestimated.
With thirty-two millions of people aroused by an overpowering impulse that dared them to follow the dictates of conscience by pledging their loyalty to the states they loved—whether it be under Southern suns or Northern snows—it is almost beyond comprehension that Brady came out of the chaos with even one photographic record. While his extensive operations could not begin until system and organization were accomplished, he did secure many negatives in 1861.
Hardly had the news of the first gun passed around the globe when a half million men were offering their services to their country. Loyal Massachusetts was the first to march her strong and willing sons to the protection of the Government. The shrill notes of the fife sounded throughout the land and battle-scarred old Europe beheld in amazement the marshalling of great armies from a nation of volunteer patriots wholly inexperienced in military discipline—a miracle in the eyes of older civilization that had been drenched in the blood of centuries.
It was the simultaneous uprising of a Great People. The first shot from South Carolina transformed Virginia, the beloved mother of presidents, into a battleground. The streets of Baltimore became a scene of riot. The guns of the navy boomed on the North Carolina coast. The men of the West moved on through Missouri, blazing their way with shot and shell. Through Kentucky and Tennessee the reign of fire swept on until it re-echoed from Florida on the gulf to the wilderness of New Mexico and the borderline of Texas.
The American Republic was in the clutches of terrific conflict and in the first twelve months nearly a million and a quarter of its manhood was fighting for the National Flag. There was no turning from the struggle. It must be waged to its deadliest end. From this moment, for four dreadful years, fighting was taking place somewhere along the line every day and more than seven thousand battles and skirmishes were fought on land and sea.
Nearly three-fourths of the men who stood in the Union ranks in the Civil War were native-born Americans. The others were the best and bravest blood of fellow-nations.
