Illinois Monument on Orchard Knob.
CHAPTER XVIII.
The author, having set forth in the preceding pages of this narrative, by many incidents of the war, some of the cruelties which war imposes upon people of a nation involved in it, will now proceed to narrate some of the consequences of war, which he has seen and experienced. It is hoped that the suggestions in the following pages may be seeds from which will spring good and lasting results in regard to the mode of adjusting disputes between nations and people, and thereby prevent cruel and destructive wars.
War is cruel at its best, and a calamity to any nation engaged in it. It is as General Sherman termed it, “Hell.”
War should be avoided whenever it can be by honorable means, but when good and noble principles, peaceful and honest people, are assailed and are in jeopardy, there being no hope of adjusting trouble by peaceable means, then the aggressor should be crushed as speedily as possible by the employment of all proper methods and enginery that can be secured. All the noble principles that “Old Glory” represents should be sustained at all hazards. Every citizen should rally in some manner for the purpose of defending those principles.
War is often a destroyer of beautiful and prosperous countries. It takes from their homes men of robust constitutions, ruins their health, and many are maimed for life; also many die and never return.
War takes men from their business, and many from their families, who are often neglected and suffer on account of not having the necessaries of life. It demoralizes the finances of a government, which in turn destroys industries and business in general. Many million dollars of war debts accumulate, which is often a very heavy burden upon a people and requires many years to extinguish it. It has been estimated that less than one-third of the amount expended by the United States Government for the purpose of crushing the great rebellion from 1861 to 1865 would have been sufficient to pay for the macadamizing of all the public country roads in the United States. The statement of the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States of the amount of money expended for all purposes necessarily growing out of the War of the Rebellion, from 1861 to 1865, brought down to Jan. 1, 1880, amounts to the enormous sum of $6,189,929,908, an amount almost beyond belief; but yet it should not be discredited, as it was computed from a copy of an itemized statement of the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States. In addition to the $6,189,929,908, about $3,000,000,000, paid to soldiers as pensions from 1880 to 1909, brings the entire cost of the war up to the immense sum of $9,189,929,908.
The following figures give the number of lives lost in the Union armies of the United States during the war from 1861 to 1865:
| Killed in battle, | 67,058 |
| Died of wounds, | 43,012 |
| Died of disease, | 199,105 |
| Died in prisons, | 30,156 |
| Total, | 339,331 |