We hear nearly every day how much the spirit of '17 is like the spirit of '76. It's like the spirit of '61, too, as the pictures on these pages show. Two of them were taken in 1917; the others are from two numbers of Harper's Weekly published during the Civil War Back in '61 the censorship wasn't quite so strict. The picture at the top of the page is labeled "Sixty-ninth (Irish) Regiment Embarking in the James Adger' for the War." The one below is just some American troops embarking on something for somewhere This is what Harper's Weekly of 1862 calls "Woman's Influence," which starts a rather fascinating train of thought. Can a sock influence the course of battles? Could a dropt stitch have as far-reaching and fatal consequences as the missing horse-shoe nail? Even a generation ago Sister Susie sewed shirts for soldiers as the box in the lower right hand corner proves. Apparently she also made comfort bags. She seems slightly more pensive than her 1917 counterpart, but perhaps that is because her skirts are so long The battered walls of Rheims Cathedral still stand, tho another shot like that photographed above may bring them down. But there's little left of the town itself. The City Council standing here in their ruined hall are forced to hold their meetings in a nearby cellar. The soldiers at the right are trying to carry the few undamaged works of art to a place of greater safety |