he really good material to come to the surface. The preparations
at the North are on a scale we never before dreamed of, and her
government seems determined to enforce obedience."

"God forbid!" and Wyatt spoke more solemnly than I ever heard him
before. "But I begin to believe as you do. I'd sooner risk my wreath
than that 'the good material' you speak of should have the 'chance to
come to the surface.' Think how many a good fellow would be under the
surface by that time!"

"It sometimes sickens me on parade," said George H., "when I look down
the line and think what a gap in our old set a volley will make! I
think we _are_ pretty expensive food for powder, John. Minies are no
respecters of persons, old fellow; and there'll be many a black dress
in Richmond after the first bulletin."

"God send we may all meet here after the war, and drink to the New
Nation in Wyatt's sherry!" said Lieutenant Y. "It's better than the
water at Howard's Grove. But the mare'll have hot work to get the
adjutant into camp before taps. So, here's how!" and he filled his
glass and tossed it off, as we broke up.

I have recorded the spirit of a private, everyday conversation, just as
I heard it over a dinner-table, from a party of giddy young men. But I
thought over it long that night; and many times afterward when the
sickening bulletins were posted after the battles.

Here were as gay and reckless a set of youths as wealth, position and
everything to make life dear to them could produce, going into a
desperate war--with a perfect sense of its perils, its probable
duration and its rewards--yet refusing promotion offered, that their
example might be more beneficial in calling out volunteers.

And there was no Quixotism. It was the result of reason and a
conviction that they were only doing their duty; for, I believe every
man of those I had just left perfectly appreciated the trials and
discomforts he was preparing for himself, and felt the advantages that
a commission, this early in the war, would give him!

It may be that this "romance of war" was not of long duration; and that
after the first campaign the better class of men anxiously sought
promotion. This was natural enough. They had won the right to it; and
the sacrifice of their good example had not been without effect. But I
do think it was much less natural that they should have so acted in the
first place.

Industry and bustle were still the order of the day in camp; and, in