Then behind all, the deep-down consolation (it is a glum one, but I dare not be sorry for the fact of it in the past, nor refrain from dwelling, even vaunting here at the end) that this late-years palsied old shorn and shellfish condition of me is the indubitable outcome and growth, now near for 20 years along, of too overzealous, over-continued bodily and emotional excitement and action through the times of 1862, ’3, ’4 and ’5, visiting and waiting on wounded and sick army volunteers, both sides, in campaigns or contests, or after them, or in hospitals or fields south of Washington City, or in that place and elsewhere⁠—those hot, sad, wrenching times⁠—the army volunteers, all States⁠—or North or South⁠—the wounded, suffering, dying⁠—the exhausting, sweating summers, marches, battles, carnage⁠—those trenches hurriedly heap’d by the corpse-thousands, mainly unknown⁠—Will the America of the future⁠—will this vast rich Union ever realize what itself cost, back there after all?⁠—those hecatombs of battle-deaths⁠—Those times of which, O far-off reader, this whole book is indeed finally but a reminiscent memorial from thence by me to you?