Our readers may remember that our. New York correspondent denied
during the war, the assertion frequently made here and at the South, that the Federal armies were largely recruited from the foreign population of the United States and from recently arrived emigrants. Just after the close of the war he showed from prison records and the returns of killed and wounded that they were composed almost entirely of Yankees. His assertions and con- clusions are now confirmed by the authoritative statement of the President of the Sanitary Commission, who, at an anniversary dinner, recently given in New York, said in the course of his speech that " no less than 90 per cent. of the army who fought through the war were purely American." And he added this still more noteworthy statement, that although the proportion of foreigners in the army was only 10 per cent. at most, " more than 90 per cent. of the claims [for relief] of wounded soldiers, and soldiers' widows and orphans, came from those of foreign birth."
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