We never realized its resources as on the day when our armies at the close of the war returned and passed in review at Washington. God knew that the day was stupendous and he cleared the heaven of cloud and mist and chill, and sprung the blue sky as a triumphal arch for the returning warriors to pass under. From Arlington Heights the spring foliage shook out its welcome as the hosts came over the hills, and the sparkling waters of the Potomac tossed their gold to the feet of the battalions as they came to the Long Bridge, and in an almost interminable line passed over.

The capitol for whose defense these men had fought never looked so majestic as that morning, snowy white, looking down upon the tides of men. They came surging on, billow after billow. Darius and Xerxes saw no such hosts as those that marched in the three great armies of the Potomac, Tennessee and Georgia.

Passing in silence, yet I heard in every step the thunder of conflicts through which they had waded, and seemed to see dripping from their smoke blackened flags the blood of our country's martyrs. For the best part of two days we stood and watched the filing on of what seemed endless battalions. Brigade after brigade, division after division, host after host, rank beyond rank, ever moving and ever passing, marching, marching, tramp, tramp, tramp.

These fought in the Wilderness, those rode in lightning stirrups behind Cavalry Sheridan. These men were at Chattanooga, those stood at Lookout Mountain. These followed their captain from Atlanta to the sea, holding the same flag, lifting the same sword, marching, marching, tramp, tramp, tramp. Thousands after thousands, battery front, arms shouldered, columns solid, shoulder to shoulder, wheel to wheel, charger to charger, nostril to nostril. Commanders on horses, with their manes entwined with roses and and necks encircled with garlands, fractious at the shouts that rang along the line, increasing from the clapping of children clothed in white standing on the steps of the capitol, and the tumultuous vociferation of hundreds of thousands of enraptured multitudes crying huzza, huzza!

Gleaming muskets, thundering parks of artillery, rumbling pontoon wagons, ambulances whose wheels seemed to send out the groans of the crushed and dying that they had carried. These men came from balmy Minnesota; those from Illinois prairies. These were often hummed to sleep by the pines of Oregon. These were New England lumbermen. These came out of the coal shaft. Side by side, brothers in peril, on their way home from Chancellorsville and Kennesaw Mountain and Fredericksburg. In lines that seemed infinite they passed on.

We gazed and wept and wondered, lifting up our heads to see if the end had come. But no; looking from one end of that long avenue to the other, we saw them yet in solid column, battery front, host beside host, wheel to wheel, charger to charger, nostril to nostril, coming, as it were, from under the capitol.

Forward! Forward! Their bayonets, caught in the sun, glimmered and flashed and blazed till they seemed like one long river of silver, ever and anon changing into a river of fire. No end to the procession, no rest for the eye. We avert our head from the scene unable longer to look. We feel disposed to stop our ears, but still we hear it, marching, marching, tramp, tramp, tramp. But hush! Uncover every head! Here they pass - the remnant of ten men of a full regiment. Silence! Widowhood and orphanage look on, wring their hands. Oh, wheel into the ranks all ye people, North, SOuth, East, West - all decades, all centuries, all milleniums. Forward, the whole line!