Or when right over him Jackson dashed,

That collar or cape some bullet tore;

Or when far ahead Antietam flashed,

He flung to the ground the coat that he wore; The blue great-coat, the sky-blue coat, The old blue coat the soldier wore.

Or stood at Gettysburg, where the graves
Rang deep to Howard's cannon roar;
Or saw with Grant the unchained waves
Where conquering hosts the blue coat wore;
The blue great-coat, the sky-blue coat,
The old blue coat the soldier wore.

That garb of honor tells enough,

Though I its story guess no more; The heart it covers is made of such stuff, That the coat is mail which that soldier wore; The blue great-coat, the sky-blue coat, The old blue coat the soldier wore.

In some such sentiment concerning the nation's defenders during the Civil War the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers had its origin. The most generous provision throughout the war was made for the union army. Nothing was too good for the boys in blue, who met the successive calls that came from President Lincoln. No other government

lies of those who died in the service, was continued after the close of the great struggle; indeed, it has characterized all the years that have followed the Civil War. The reports of the Pension Office furnish abundant evidence of the truth of this statement. The total amount paid to pensioners of the Civil War to the close of the fiscal year ending June 30, 1906, is $3,259,195,306.60.

But the government since the war has done more than this for the men who wore "the old blue coat.' In different parts of the country, it has provided ten homes, or, rather, ten branches of its one national home for its disabled veterans. The need of such homes was seen even before the close of the Civil War, and March 3, 1865, Congress passed an act establishing "a military asylum" for the officers and men of the volunteer forces of the United States, who had been, or might afterward become, totally disabled. Among the incorporators named in the act were such prominent officers as Grant, Farragut, Sherman, Meade, Burnside,

Hooker, Howard, Banks, Butler, Dodge and Schurz, and such prominent civilians as Hamlin, Chase, Stanton, Welles, Bancroft, Andrew, Curtin, Morton, Beecher, Fish, Wayland, Greeley, Raymond, Bennett, Evarts and Washburn. Immediate organization was not effected, but March 21, 1866, a revised act of incorporation establishing "The National Asylum for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers" was passed, providing for a board of managers consisting of the President of the United States, the Secretary of War, the Chief Justice of the United States and nineafterward the number was increased to eleven other citizens; and it was made their duty to procure for early use, at suitable places, sites for such "military asylums, and to have the necessary buildings erected, due regard being given to the health of the locality, facility of access and capacity to accommodate the persons provided for by the act.

The following were declared to be entitled to the benefits of the asylum: "All officers and soldiers who served in the late war for the purpose of suppressing the rebellion, and not provided for by existing laws, who may have been or may be dis

abled by wounds received or sickness contracted in the line of their duty," and it was required that "such of these as have neither wife, child nor parent dependent on them, on becoming inmates of this asylum, or receiving relief therefrom, shall assign their pensions, when required by the board of managers," during their connection with the asylum.

The term "asylum," however, was not deemed a happy one, and January 23, 1873, the act of incorporation was amended by inserting the word "home" in place of the word "asylum." There have been changes also in the eligibility section, which now extends the benefits of the home to "all honorably discharged officers, soldiers and sailors, who served in the regular or volunteer forces of the United States in any war in which the country was engaged, including the Spanish-American War, and the provisional army (authorized by act of Congress, approved March 2, 1899), who are disabled by disease, wounds or otherwise, and who have no adequate means of support, are not otherwise provided for by law, and by reason of such disability are incapable of earning their living."

The first home established under the action of Congress already cited, was located at Togus, near Augusta, Maine. This is now known as the "Eastern Branch of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers." Authority for its establishment was secured by an act of Congress approved March 21, 1866. Evidently the location was determined by the fact that at this place there was an opportunity of securing at a cost of $50,000 property that cost a very much larger sum, and connected with which there were buildings that could easily be adapted to the required uses. By an act approved January 28, 1867, the State of Maine ceded to the United States jurisdiction over the land thus purchased (about 1,100 acres, since increased to 1,894 acres), and exonerated it from all state taxes and assessments. The state retained concurrent jurisdiction with the United States over the estate thus ceded in so far that all civil processes, issued under the authority of the state against any person or persons charged with crimes or offenses committed outside, may be executed therein in the same manner as though this cession had not been granted.

Other branches were subsequently added as follows: The Central Branch

at Dayton, Ohio, in 1867; the Northwestern Branch at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1867; the Southern Branch at Hampton, Virginia, in 1870; the Western Branch at Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1885; the Pacific Branch at Santa Monica, California, in 1887; the Marion Branch at Marion, Indiana, in 1888; the Danville Branch at Danville, Illinois, in 1897; the Mountain Branch at Johnson City, Tennessee, in 1901, and the Battle Mountain Sanitarium at Hot Springs, Springs, South Dakota, in 1902. Connected with these ten branches are 5,308 acres of land, of the value of $345,231.51. The buildings at these ten branches have an estimated value of $9,401,651.68.

The whole number admitted to the several branches of the home from its incorporation to June 30, 1905, is 131,302.* The annual membership of the home has steadily increased from the opening of the first branch. During the year end

* Of these 16,317 were from Ohio; 14,529 from Pennsylvania; 14,042 from New York; 10,435 from Illinois; 9,941 from Indiana; 7,604 from Massachusetts; 7,561 from Missouri; 6,451 from Kansas; 6,295 from California; 5,239 from Wisconsin; 2,108 from Michigan; 2,824 from the District of Columbia; 2,392 from Maine; 2,336 from Kentucky; 2,239 from New Jersey; 1,954 from Virginia; 1,871 from Maryland; 1,823 from Iowa; 1,321 from Connecticut; 1,270 from Colorado; 1,139 from Rhode Island; 1,041 from Nebraska; and a smaller number from thirty other states and territories.

34,053 members, the Mexican War furnished 165, the Civil War 32,839, the Spanish American War 843, and the provisional army 206. As to service, 1,416 were in the regular army, 30,881 in the volunteer army, and 1,756 in the navy.

The members of the home, without expense to them, are provided with suitable clothing, including cap, hat, great coat, dress coat, blouse, vest, trousers, shoes, knit woolen shirts, canton-flannel drawers, woolen stockings, white cotton gloves and suspenders. The old army infantry colors for coats and trousers are retained. Any article of clothing is exchangeable for a corresponding new article when its condition warrants. Comfortable quarters for the members are provided in barracks. At each of the branches there is an up-to-date hospital, with a corps of efficient surgeons and nurses. Religious

was $17,928.96. If any member performs any service in the home, he is paid for it. The amount thus paid to the members of the home in all its branches during the year ending June 30, 1905, was $510,569.86.

The expenditures for all the branches during the year ending June 30, 1905, were $3,281,214.62.

The receipts of the national home for its maintenance since its organization to June 30, 1905, have been $75,662,342.79. Of this amount the sum of $56,862,577.65 was expended for maintenance, $13,600,897.81 for construction, and $309,253.06 for the purchase of land.

The present president of the board of managers is the Hon. Franklin Murphy, late governor of New Jersey, who entered the military service in the Thirteenth New Jersey Volunteer Infantry at sixteen.

years of age, and at the close of the war was mustered out as a first lieutenant at nineteen years of age. The headquarters of the board are in New York, and the executive officers of the home, other than the president already mentioned, are Major Moses Harris, general treasurer; Colonel W. E. Elwell, inspector-general and chief surgeon; Lieutenant-Colonel George B. Patrick, assistant general treasurer and assistant inspector-general; General Newton M. Curtis, and Lieutenant-Colonel Charles W. Wadsworth, assistant inspectors-general.

The methods of the War Department are followed in the management of the several branches of the home, and the branches are inspected annually, not only by the board of managers and by the inspector-general of the home, or one of the assistant inspectors-general, but also by one of the inspectors-general of the United States army under orders from the War Department.

The ages of the members of the home range from about fifty-six to one hundred years. In the year ending June 30, 1905, there were two members of the home who had rounded out a full century.

In point of diversity of character the members are not unlike what they were during the Civil War. Character tends to fixedness. Habits are not easily changed. Among the members of the home are many whom any man would be glad to know; and if there are othersas it was indeed in the Civil War, both in the army and navy-I find it hard to think anything unworthy of one who still wears the "old blue coat" of the long-ago days of the Civil War. Time has dealt not altogether kindly with the men in every respect. Many of them for years Many of them for years had good homes from which, for one cause or another, the light has gone out. In the hospital one day, I came to the bedside of a veteran eighty-five years old. "Have you a wife?" I asked. He said he had.

"And how old is she?" I inquired. "Eighty-three," was the reply. "Well," I added, "it is certainly hard for you to be separated at this time of life.

"Yes," he said, "but the pension the pension money was not enough for us both, and

so I came here in order that she might have it all."

Not a few of the men are without near kindred. It is a rare occurrence at the funerals at the home that a single relative of the older men is present. Those who knew and loved them in other and better days are gone. The veteran has outlived them all.

A word should be added concerning the beer hall, often called the canteen. The members of the board of managers and the officers of the several branches are men (need it be said?) who desire the highest welfare of the old soldiers. The establishment of the beer hall had no other object in view than to improve the conditions of the home. An old drinkhabit is not easily cured. The greatest foe to good order in all the branches is this old habit. The liquor-seller, in prohibition and non-prohibition states, is at hand ready to tempt the old soldier in order to get his money. He hangs about the outskirts of the reservation, or lures his victim to the saloon, and places worse than the saloon. The beer hall, by the sale of beer to the old soldiers within the limits of the reservation, and under the restrictions of the home, is a restrictive measure; and the results, according to the testimony of the officers of the several branches, prove it. The conditions are vastly better, so far as good order is concerned, than they were before the establishment of the beer hall. Those conditions are not ideal. Far from it. But they might be a great deal worse, and they were a great deal worse, when the men were compelled to go outside the limits of the camp in order to meet the cravings of an old habit. It is not to be forgotten that these are old men. Most of them are between sixty-five and eighty years of age. I have a large amount of pity for those upon whom the drink habit has so strongly fastened its chains. I wish they would "touch not, taste not, handle not." But I greatly prefer, from what I have learned in the home, that they should go to the beer hall for beer than to the miserable rum-holes into which many of them will be lured for stronger drink, we have every reason to fear, if the action of the last Congress concerning the beer hall is allowed to stand.