n to the Man of Sorrows, whose effigy had been
removed from all public buildings.]

A little more than a year afterwards, in Early's Valley campaign,--a
rude school of warfare,--I was serving as a volunteer aide on General
Gordon's staff. The day before the disaster of Fisher's Hill I was
ordered, together with another staff officer, to accompany the general
on a ride to the front. The general had a well-known weakness for
inspecting the outposts,--a weakness that made a position in his suite
somewhat precarious. The officer with whom I was riding had not been
with us long, and when he joined the staff had just recovered from
wounds and imprisonment. A man of winning appearance, sweet temper, and
attractive manners, he soon made friends of the military family, and I
never learned to love a man so much in so brief an acquaintance, though
hearts knit quickly in the stress of war. He was highly educated, and
foreign residence and travel had widened his vision without affecting
the simple faith and thorough consecration of the Christian. Here let me
say that the bearing of the Confederates is not to be understood without
taking into account the deep religious feeling of the army and its great
leaders. It is an historical element, like any other, and is not to be
passed over in summing up the forces of the conflict. "A soldier without
religion," says a Prussian officer, who knew our army as well as the
German, "is an instrument without value"; and it is not unlikely that
the knowledge of the part that faith played in sustaining the Southern
people may have lent emphasis to the expression of his conviction.

We rode together towards the front, and as we rode our talk fell on
Goethe and on Faust, and of all passages the soldiers' song came up to
my lips,--the song of soldiers of fortune, not the chant of men whose
business it was to defend their country. Two lines, however, were
significant:--

Kuehn ist das Muehen,
Herrlich der Lohn.

We reached the front. An occasional "zip" gave warning that the
sharpshooters were not asleep, and the quick eye of the general saw that
our line needed rectification and how. Brief orders were given to the
officer in command. My comrade was left to aid in carrying them out. The
rest of us withdrew. Scarcely had we ridden a hundred yards towards camp
when a shout was heard, and, turning round, we saw one of the men
running after us. "The captain had been killed." The peace of h