The Veteran in a New Field

1867

The article that accompanied this image remarked that “One of the most conclusive evidences of the strength of a republican form of government is the way in which our army has disbanded, each man seeking again the sphere of usefulness which he left only temporarily, to aid the Government in its need.” The illustration probably also makes reference to a clause from Isaiah 2:4, often cited in the mid-nineteenth century: “And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nations shall not life up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”