June 1863

Sam Ward thought the new generation bet- ter than the last. We have had peace and its disablings; you will have the excitement and training of war. The mischief is such that I hear sometimes the sentiment expressed that to re- move this mountain of calamity from our in- stitutions were worth the expenditure of an en- tire generation. Who is he that will not be one? I believe, if men saw surely this issue in the sacrifice, that many are ready to be offered. It sweetens the cup of grief of mothers that the loss of their youthful hero has served to close up this crater of death in the forum. We do not often have a moment of grandeur in these hurried, slipshod, aimless lives.