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Vermont, printer, shared his frustration over the treatment of the patriots who fought in the American Revolution:
    In Times of War, to God we humbly pray
To bless our arms; and grudge no Soldier a pay;
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    When Dangers o’er, they are both alike requited,
God is forgot, and the poor soldier slighted. 1
    Not only was this issue troubling the new nation, it was also beginning to find partisan resonance.
    In the postwar euphoria, a grateful republic had embraced the Revolutionary War veterans. The embrace was but quick, however, as in those early years the country and its citizens had much else to do. Within a few years, the celebration of the heroic Revolution became an important ritual of national unity. The image that George Washington projected and his biographers embellished, heroic in lifetime and Mosaic in death,
drew in those who served with him. As time passed and as the veterans of the Revolution passed on, the survivors were viewed as even more heroic than they had seemed when they were simply the young neighbors who returned to the business at hand at farms and shops after the war.
    As they did in so many areas defining the relationship of the citizen to the state, the revolutionary generation and their immediate descendants wrestled not only with the question of how a democracy should mobilize for war, but also how a democracy should then deal with those who have set aside their civilian lives to engage in democracy’s wars. This generation and its immediate successors found some answers that would inform and shape subsequent debate and decisions. By the time of the American Civil War (1861–1865), the country had learned how to form a standing military force for wartime—in this case, two military forces—even as the nation remained innately suspicious of a standing army. Through this process—and perhaps providing a basis to accept this new view of the military—the country also expanded the national narrative to celebrate military accomplishments. The nation’s veterans came to personify the heroic, patriotic national memory.
    At the beginning of the War of 1812, a new publication for young readers published a story that appealed to a sense of obligation and of gratitude to those who had taken up arms for the Republic. The writer began his tale by describing a chance meeting on the street with a man who was seeking a gift. “I am a poor old soldier! (said a tremulous voice, as I turned the corner of the street,) Your honor cannot, surely pass a poor old soldier!” The author admitted that “an old tattered military coat, and a wooden leg, always softens my heart to pity, and disposes me to acts of benevolence.” The soldier spoke of bitter campaigns, of his body broken, his brother killed, and his wife deserting him during the American Revolution. Then “he turned away, to hide a tear that glistened in spite of all his courage.” The narrator noted that most citizens, even the most selfish, responded to these types of appeals. “I have often been pleased to see a maimed and disabled soldier, begging through our streets, when the liberal hand of charity has been opened to assist him: a smile of approbation, or something (I know not what) has flashed in my face, to see a very miser
relent at his piteous tale, and with a half formed resolution, contribute his farthing.” The story concluded with a plea:
    Come hither, ye who have reaped the harvest of this man’s labour, who have been rolling in ease and affluence, whilst he has been fighting your battles:—ye, who feel the blessings of peace, which this man has purchased for you—come and see him begging for the bread which you enjoy in plenty!—Tell me if you were pained when he was wounded, if you bled when he was laid on the field of battle?—Alas! He has dearly earned the privilege to beg. Come then—it is yours, it is mine, it is the business of us all, to make the