Without this machinery, however, our Western farmers could never have harvested the gigantic crops which not only fed our soldiers but laid the basis of our economic prosperity.

Thus the War directly established one of the greatest, and certainly one of the most romantic, of our industries--that of agricultural machinery.
Above all, however, the victory at Appomattox threw upon the country more than a million unemployed men.

Our European critics predicted that their return to civil life would produce dire social and political consequences.

But these critics were thinking in terms of their own countries; they failed to consider that the United States had an immense unoccupied domain which was waiting for development.

The men who fought the Civil War had demonstrated precisely the adventurous, hardy instincts which were most needed in this great enterprise.