Disheartened | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 10, 1863

Disheartened.

In our travels we meet many soldiers returning to their homes, who have been disabled on the battle field, or whose constitutions have been broken down by disease and medicine in the hospitals. Thus far, they all tell the same sad story. While officers are feasting on the choice things sent to the wounded and sick of the army, and reveling in drunkenness and debauchery, pulling political wires, the poor soldier is as little cared for as those in the darkest corner of Southern slavery. Said one to us, a few days ago,—"Six months' pay is now due many of them, but I do not believe there is one in five hundred in the army, who would not jump at the chance, like a hungry dog for a piece of meat, to give the whole of it to get a discharge." All testify that the soldiers, as a general thing, are "disheartened," "discouraged." All say, so far as we have obtained an expression of their feeling,—"Had we known what we were to pass through, and the treatment we were to receive from those in authority, we should never have enlisted." No doubt there are some noble exceptions, but it has not been our privilege to meet them.—World's Crisis.