Rensselaer Union, Volume 1, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 February 1869 — The Maimed Brigade. [ARTICLE]

The Maimed Brigade.

Go where you will in all this land you will fiud the members ot the Maimed Brigade. Tiie blue has faded from their dress, and the brass letters have dropped from their caps, but there is no mistaking that they have beeu soldiers. They have no need to refer to muster rolls. or to exhibit parchment discharges, to prove that they were in the army. Fifty thousand strong is the Maimed Brigade. They march in our streets, not with the precision of yore, but as undaunted still. Brave men ! Their limbs are scattered over a dozen States. They moulder and W'hiteu on the same fields with the bodies of the patriotic slaiu—and the hands of tho dead may grasp the dead bauds of the living, though the latter be a thousand miles from the throbbing hearts that oupe warmed them with their blood. Fifty thousand men who have laid some of their limbs upbn their country’s altar as sacrifices of liberty, move daily among us. Were they to pass through the city in regiments, for a whole day, from any given point could our eyes rest upon the columns of the Maimed Brigade. A thousand tattered battle-flags would wave above them, held by one-armed heroes, and

many thousand footless legs would be keeping step to the music of the Union. Let us uot forget the onearmed and one-legged soldiers, who form an army four Umes.&s large as the old army of tho United States, and fully as large as the present. — They need not be gathered together and passed in rcyiew before the people in. whose behalf they have suffered and suffer stiff, to assert the fed of their being. i Tho. Government has recognised them, and given them, as far as they have made application, pensions and ajtiflctnl limbs. But let the people be careful that they do not, forget; them. Tim battle these poor follows are now-fighting is harder to wifi and fraught with more danger thanlnany. battles of thfe rebellion, ThapsatKls of stalwart men, . lion-hearted end steel-nerved, who stormed Mission liidge or bore down upon the 001-. nmn» of Jf.eo without fear, to-day stand appalled befojr^thg^CM|L

I limb • poor—a very poor.sobuilvte. Lei an able-bodied roan, with a family to take care of, pjff"* for what annuity ho would swapiyi * r,n 'of a’leg. This is the way validity of the claim the Maimed Brigade has upon our corisidcfaUpm ‘ ‘Tfibre are many places these he' roio men can fill as well ns Those who have but one arm cart inakegood book-keepers) those who have but ,0110 leg. can ipake good salesmen: while neither can plow, ’ T I' T. ■>> II , sow', nor reap to advantage. Away to the fields and the workshops, yoit~ lily-fingered, pale-faced, dawdlipg dandy behind the dry goods counter, and give your place to a disabled defender of your country in exchange for a more robust frame and a inoro certain futpre competency. . All ye non-pyodncers wbo have perfect limbs, an (I who took good care all through the war to keep them so, who are now occupying paying positions which the lame soldier can fill as well, prepare to vacate in his fjivor. Make way, say tor the Maimed’.Brigade. Chicago /W. * , t> ’ / The Prairiedu Chicn (Wisconsin) Courier vouches for the occurrence, in that Cl tty of the following amusing iiioideiit: —z —r - : “A little boy of iorne six year3,nm from kitchen to parlor, cryirtgai t!?o top of bis voice: ‘Mamma 1 mamma! papa and the hired girl are fighting, rapahns-got his arm arpuud her neck and is choking her real hard, And the girl bit papa twice, right in • the mouth!’ It is nirntwesSary t<’> state that tho lady of the hoiUe brought-t,Ue.row to a close inahurry, and that the girl is looking for » •new place.”