prank of any pony. Fourteen years will do this, even to
boys of ten. Horace Bartlett is the colonel of a cavalry regiment,
stationed just now in West Virginia; and, as it happens, this
twenty-four-year-old boy has an older commission than anybody in that
region, and is the Post Commander at Talbot C. H., and will be, most
likely, for the winter. The boy has a vein of foresight in him; a good
deal of system; and, what is worth while to have by the side of system,
some knack of order. So soon as he finds that he is responsible, he
begins to prepare for responsibility. His staff-officers are boys too;
but they are all friends, and all mean to do their best. His
Surgeon-in-Charge took his degree at Washington last spring; that is
encouraging. Perhaps, if he has not much experience, he has, at least,
the latest advices. His head is level too; he means to do his best, such
as it is; and, indeed, all hands in that knot of boy counsellors will
not fail for laziness or carelessness. Their very youth makes them
provident and grave.

So among a hundred other letters, as October opens, Horace writes
this:--

TALBOT COURT HOUSE, VA.,
Oct. 3, 1863.

DEAR HULDAH,--Here we are still, as I have been explaining to
father; and, as you will see by my letter to him, here we are
like to stay. Thus far we are doing sufficiently well. As I have
told him, if my plans had been adopted we should have been
pushed rapidly forward up the valley of the Yellow Creek;
Badger's corps would have been withdrawn from before Winchester;
Wilcox and Steele together would have threatened Early; and
then, by a rapid flank movement, we should have pounced down on
Longstreet (not the great Longstreet, but little Longstreet),
and compelled him to uncover Lynchburg; we could have blown up
the dams and locks on the canal, made a freshet to sweep all the
obstructions out of James River, and then, if they had shown
half as much spirit on the Potomac, all of us would be in
Richmond for our Christmas dinner. But my plans, as usual, were
not asked for, far less taken. So, as I said, here we are.

Well, I have been talking with Lawrence Worster, my
Surgeon-in-Charge, who is a very good fellow. His sick-list is
not bad now, and he does not mean to have it bad; but he says
that he is not pleased with the ways of his ward-masters; and it
was his suggestion, not mine, mar