ion--that there was scarcely a gallant father of a
family who had not his moments of regret that he was not a soldier by
profession, which might have made it his duty to accompany it; every
high-minded youth grieved that his first impulses, which would have sent
him upon the same errand, were not to be yielded to, and that
after-thought did not sanction and confirm the instantaneous dictates or
the reiterated persuasions of an heroic spirit. The army took its
departure with prayers and blessings which were as widely spread as they
were fervent and intense. For it was not doubted that, on this occasion,
every person of which it was composed, from the General to the private
soldier, would carry both into his conflicts with the enemy in the
field, and into his relations of peaceful intercourse with the
inhabitants, not only the virtues which might be expected from him as a
soldier, but the antipathies and sympathies, the loves and hatreds of a
citizen--of a human being--acting, in a manner hitherto unprecedented
under the obligation of his human and social nature. If the conduct of
the rapacious and merciless adversary rendered it neither easy nor
wise--made it, I might say, impossible to give way to that unqualified
admiration of courage and skill, made it impossible in relation to him
to be exalted by those triumphs of the courteous affections, and to be
purified by those refinements of civility which do, more than any thing,
reconcile a man of thoughtful mind and humane dispositions to the
horrors of ordinary war; it was felt that for such loss the benign and
accomplished soldier would upon this mission be abundantly recompensed
by the enthusiasm of fraternal love with which his Ally, the oppressed
people whom he was going to aid in rescuing themselves, would receive
him; and that this, and the virtues which he would witness in them,
would furnish his heart with never-failing and far nobler objects of
complacency and admiration. The discipline of the army was well known;
and as a machine, or a vital organized body, the Nation was assured that
it could not but be formidable; but thus to the standing excellence of
mechanic or organic power seemed to be superadded, at this time, and for
this service, the force of _inspiration_: could any thing therefore be
looked for, but a glorious result? The army proved its prowess in the
field; and what has been the result is attested, and long will be
attested, by the downcast looks--th