er for ourselves when
our turn to follow you shall come. So we break out into our favorite
chorus:

'Then we'll stand by our glasses steady,
And we'll drink to our ladies' eyes.
Three cheers for the dead already,
And huzza for the next man that dies.

Though your graves are unmarked, save by the simple broad slab from
which storms have already effaced the pencilled legend, or perhaps only
by the murderous fragment of iron, which lies half imbedded on the spot
where you fell and where you lie, yet you live in the memory of your
comrades, you live in the hearts of those who were desolated by your
death, you live in that eternal record of heaven where are written the
names of those who have given their lives to promote the truth and the
freedom which God has guaranteed to humanity in the great charters of
Nature and Revelation. For we are fighting in a holy cause. No crusade
to redeem Eastern shrines from infidels, no struggle for the privilege
of religious freedom, no insurrection for civil independence, has been
more holy than this strife against the great curse and its abettors, who
seek to make a land of freedom a land of bondage to substitute for a
Union of freemen, miserable oligarchies controlled by breeders of
slaves. If we die in this cause, we have lived a full life. An anomalous
state of things had existed between the time of the attack on Sumter and
the 'invasion' of Virginia. Although the war had in reality commenced,
communication was not suspended between Washington and Alexandria. On
the day following the march over the Potomac, we found the plans of
intrenchments marked out by wooden forms on the spots which subsequently
became Fort Corcoran, opposite Georgetown, Fort Runyon, opposite
Washington, and Fort Ellsworth, in front of Alexandria. How this had so
speedily been done by the engineers I did not learn until many months
afterward, when one of the party who planned the works described the
_modus operandi_. They went over to Virginia in a very rustic dress, and
professed to the rebel pickets to be from 'down country,' come up to
take a look at 'them durned Yankees.' So they walked around unmolested,
selected the sites for the intrenchments, formed the plans in their
minds, made some stealthy notes and sketches, and, returning to
Washington, plotted the works on paper, gave directions to the
carpenters about the frames, which were constructed; and, after the army
crossed, these were