Back to Harrisburg.
From camp near Washington to Harrisburg, there a closing of accounts with the Government that had, with the loss of 400,000 Loyal Lives and the crippling of 300,000 Union Soldiers, and the agonies of the sorrows which never could be told off, been made altogether free.
Into the hands of each Comrade was placed a printed copy of the following paper: "Parting as a Band of Brothers, let us cling to the memory of those tattered banners, under which we have fought together, and which, without dishonor, we have just now restored to the authorities who placed them in our hands. Till we grow gray-headed and pass away, let us sustain the reputation of this noble Regiment.
"Fortune threw together two organizations, the 84th and 57th, to make the present command. Both Regiments have been in the service since the beginning of the strife, and the records of both will command respect in all coming time. Very many of those who were enrolled with us have fallen, and their graves are scattered here and there throughout the South. We shall not forget them, and the people of this Nation must and will honor their memory. Comrades, Farewell."
Then with certificates of Honorable Muster-Out, all matters of detail faithfully completed, and the 8th day of July, 1865, at hand, the "Old Regimental Home" was gone, and forever.
The War is over! But not so with its splendid achievements, its grand and far reaching results.
Never was conflict waged to a better and surer end. Never a result attained bearing so completely upon true Governmental Economy.
To the Revolution of '75 we are indebted for the rebellion of '61. The Revolution stands out the more grandly because of the resulting text—the rebellion. The rejection of the latter was the upholding of the principles of the former; posterity's emphatic endorsement of a valued ancestry.
Victories may be great, but not always just. Conquerors have vanquished peoples and thereby encompassed countries within their toils, and then regretted there was not more to do on the same line. But their doing was only the accomplishment of personal gain, the satisfaction of selfish purpose. With them war was a thing sought after, not a calamity to be avoided.
Justice was not their polar star, nor did they seek the moral sphere as the place of their habitation. With them war was a vocation ordinary, and life and morals considerations secondary. Public standing and landed interests were made to depend upon military record. Conquered territory was divided as would be now the spoils of the theft, among the participators in the act and in proportion to the extent of the service done. What a mistake, how grievous a wrong, to review on the printed page the tenacity of an Alexander, or the vigor of a Napoleon, for the purpose of comparing the wars of their armies with the deeds of patriotism and of valor that moved the six fighting years of the Revolution, or the four years of the rebellion.