Before the great army melted away into the greater body of citizens, the
soldiers enjoyed one final triumph, a march through the capital,
undisturbed by death or danger, under the eyes of their highest
commanders, military and civilian, and the representatives of the people
whose nationality they had saved. Those who witnessed this solemn yet
joyous pageant will never forget it, and will pray that their children
may never witness anything like it. For two days this formidable host
marched the long stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue, starting from the
shadow of the dome of the Capitol, and filling that wide thoroughfare to
Georgetown with a serried mass, moving with the easy yet rapid pace of
veterans in cadence step. As a mere spectacle this march of the
mightiest host the continent has ever seen gathered together was grand
and imposing; but it was not as a spectacle alone that it affected the
beholder most deeply. It was not a mere holiday parade; it was an army
of citizens on their way home after a long and terrible war. Their
clothes were worn and pierced with bullets; their banners had been torn
with shot and shell, and lashed in the winds of a thousand battles; the
very drums and fifes had called out the troops to numberless night
alarms, and sounded the onset on historic fields.
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