Without money, credit, employment, material, or
training; and beside all this, confronted with the gravest problem that
ever met human intelligence--the establishing of a status for the vast
body of his liberated slaves.
What does he do--this hero in gray with a heart of gold? Does he sit
down in sullenness and despair? Not for a day. Surely God, who had
stripped him of his prosperity, inspired him in his adversity. As ruin
was never before so overwhelming, never was restoration swifter. The
soldier stepped from the trenches into the furrow; horses that had
charged Federal guns marched before the plow, and fields that ran red
with human blood in April were green with the harvest in June; women
reared in luxury cut up their dresses and made breeches for their
husbands, and, with a patience and heroism that fit women always as a
garment, gave their hands to work. There was little bitterness in all
this. Cheerfulness and frankness prevailed.
Never was nobler duty confided to human hands than the uplifting and
upbuilding of the prostrate and bleeding South--misguided, perhaps, but
beautiful in her suffering, and honest, brave and generous always.
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