higan in the war. Under their able leadership,
hundreds of young men were instructed in the art of war and taught the
principles of tactics, so that they were qualified to take responsible
positions in the regiments that were put in the field the following
year.

I remember going to see a dress parade of the First Michigan cavalry at
Detroit in August. It was formed on foot, horses not having yet been
furnished. It was a fine body of men, and Colonel Thornton F. Brodhead
impressed me greatly because of his tall, commanding figure and military
bearing. He distinguished himself and was killed at Second Bull Run.

Among the other officers was a spare, frail looking man named Town. He
was at that time major and succeeded to the colonelcy after the death of
Brodhead. He always sought death on the battle field, but never found
it, and came home to die of consumption after the war was over. He was a
modern Chevalier Bayard, and led his regiment at Gettysburg in the
grandest cavalry charge of the war. I have no doubt that Meade's right
was saved, July 3, 1863, by the superb courage of Charles H. Town and
his brave followers. History is beginning to give the cavalry tardy
justice for the part it played in that, one of the few great, decisive
battles.

[Illustration: THORNTON F. BRODHEAD]

One of the most interested spectators of the parade was the venerable
statesman and Democratic leader, Lewis Cass. He was then seventy-nine
years of age, and few men had occupied a more conspicuous place in State
and Nation. He was not without military experience, having been
prominent in the frontier war of 1811, and in the war of 1812 he served
as an aid to General Harrison. Soon thereafter, he was appointed
brigadier general in the United States army, and was Secretary of War in
the Cabinet of President Jackson. He also served as Territorial governor
of Michigan, under the administrations of Madison, Monroe and John
Quincy Adams. The fact of his resignation from the Cabinet of James
Buchanan has already been referred to. I confess that I was, for the
time being, more interested in that quiet man, standing there under the
shadow of a tree, looking on at the parade, than in the tactical
movements of the embryotic soldiers. There was, indeed, much about him
to excite the curiosity and inflame the imagination of a youngster only
just turned twenty-one.

Obtaining a position near where he stood, I studied him closely. He was
not an imposing