Then forward, noble army of the brave and true!  Rally and forward, and forward again, until every Malakoff of Wrong is reduced, and every suffering Lucknow of our country hears the slogan of deliverance.  You have glorious successes to cheer you now.  You can think of Somerset and Donelson, and all the glorious battles of the war—­of forts taken, of enemies driven, of towns evacuated, of the great cities of the enemy in our hands, of all the stirring, glorious successes of our army and our flag—­and even had you none of these to think of, you could think of our cause, and this would be enough.  Then let the bugles sound, the trumpets clang, the drums beat, the cannons roar, and we will march, and rally, and forward, and charge and charge and charge, until victory or death crown our labors; and if death to us, so let it be—­it will be victory to our successors.  This is the spirit of our Northern army.  Sing plaudits to it, ye sons of song.  Let your eloquence be inspired by it, ye golden-mouthed men—­ye Everetts and Sumners.  Write of them, ye gifted who would live in the coming time.  Weave garlands for them, ye white-handed and lily-browed.  Write anthems and oratorios for them, ye men of music.  Pray for them, each and all of you, night and day, with heart and voice.  But we can not, if we would, overlook the desolation which the war has brought and must bring upon our favored land.  We can not conceal from ourselves the fact that, end when it will, or how it may, it must bring desolation to thousands of happy households, and inflict never-healing wounds upon thousands of happy hearts.  For every man who falls in battle some one mourns.  For every man who dies in hospital-wards, and of whom no note is made, some one mourns.  For the humblest soldier shot on picket, and of whose humble exit from the stage of life little is thought, some one mourns.  Nor this alone.  For every soldier disabled; for every one who loses an arm or a leg, or who is wounded or languishes in protracted suffering; for every one who has ‘only camp-fever,’ some heart bleeds, some tears are shed.  In far-off humble households, perhaps, sleepless nights and anxious days are passed, of which the world never knows; and every wounded and crippled soldier who returns to family and friends, brings a lasting pang with him.  Oh! how the mothers feel this war!  If ever God is sad in heaven, it seems to me it must be when he looks upon the hearts of mothers.  We who are young, think little of it, know nothing of it; neither, I think, do the fathers or the brothers know much of it; but it is the poor mothers and wives of the soldiers.  God help them!  But the theme is too sad—­let us leave it.  And amid this wild rush of war, let us not forget our individual duties and responsibilities.  Carlyle truly says:  ’Each of us here, let the world go how it will, and be victorious or not victorious, has he not a little life of his own to lead?  One life—­a little gleam of life between two