ifer, in the open air, in front of our tent. We have eaten supper, and
Colonel Ammen has the floor; he always has it. He is somewhat
superstitious. He never likes to see the moon through brush. He is to
some extent a believer in dreams. On one occasion he dreamed that his
father, who was drowned, came up from the muddy water, looked angrily at
him, and endeavored to stab him with a rusty knife. In his effort to
escape he awoke. Falling to sleep again, his father reappeared and made
a second attempt to stab him. This so thoroughly aroused and troubled
him that he could not sleep. In the morning he told this dream to a
friend, and was informed that two members of his family would soon die.
Soon after he was summoned home, when he found his mother dead and his
sister dying of cholera. At another time he felt a sharp pain in the
back of his neck, and was impressed with the idea that he had been shot.
Soon afterward he learned that his brother in the South had been shot in
the back of the neck and killed. He believes that his own sensation of
pain was experienced at the very instant when his brother received the
fatal wound; but as he could not remember the precise hour when he was
startled by the disagreeable impression, he could not be positive that
the occurrences were simultaneous. When going into battle at Greenbrier
and at Shiloh, the belief that his time to die had not come rendered him
cool and fearless. He never felt more at ease or more secure. So when,
at two different times, he was very ill, and informed that he could not
live through the night, he felt absolutely sure that he would recover.

Garfield had a very impressionable relative. The night before his fight
with Humphrey Marshall, she wrote a very accurate general description of
the battle, giving the position of the troops; referring to the
reinforcements which came up, and the great shout with which they were
welcomed.

These mysterious impressions suggested the existence of an undiscovered,
or possibly an undeveloped principle in nature, which time and
investigation would ultimately make familiar.

Colonel Ammen says, "If superstition, or a belief in the supernatural,
is an indication of weakness, Napoleon and Sir Walter Scott were the
weakest of men."

With General Garfield I called on General Rousseau this morning. He is a
larger and handsomer man than Mitchell, but I think lacks the latter's
energy, culture, system, and industry.

24. We can not