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An Address

To All Honorably Discharged 

Soldiers and Sailors

In the Loyal States, From The

Soldiers' and Sailors' National Union League

Of Washington, D. C.

To the Honorably discharged Soldiers and Sailors of the United States, greeting:

We address the honorably discharged soldiers and sailors of the Union army and navy of our country upon the importance of organizing leagues throughout the States, having for their object the maintenance of their rights and best interests, and the fostering of that heroic spirit which led them forth to battle in a sacred cause, and the diffusing and practising of those great patriotic truths and lessons evolved by the success of their efforts.

It is admitted that the rebellion just ended was one of the most gigantic recorded in the history of the world, its inception and prosecution the most wicked and diabolical, and its success would have entailed consequences the most calamitous to our country.

The successful overthrow of this monstrous combination of wicked men has secured the perpetuity of our republican form of government; established security to our commercial, agricultural, and mechanical interests, and blessings to us as a nation not exceeded by those obtained for us by our forefathers.

These great results have been accomplished by the individual and combined efforts of the Union soldier and sailor, and it is important that every man who has served his country should faithfully keep this fact in view.

It has cost the lives of many of our comrades; made vacant many a chair at the family board; and widows and orphans are now mourning the loss of their protectors, while many who went forth from the family circle in all the strength and pride of manhood have returned broken in health, their manly forms crippled and maimed; and all have endured hardships and dangers unparalleled in history. 

It behooves us to our influence to see that the crime which has inflicted so much misery and woe upon the country shall not be lost sight.