the true _gaudium certaminis_, or enjoyment of
battle, is more sincerely expressed than by any modern poet, because
there is no deliberate or conscious effort to depict it seriously. And I
believe that I deserved this opinion, because the order to march, the
tramp and rattle and ring of cavalry and artillery, and the roar of
cannon, always exhilarated me; and sometimes the old days of France would
recur to me. One day, at some place where we were awaiting an attack and
I was on guard, General Smith, pausing, asked me something of which all I
could distinguish was "Fire--before." Thinking he had said, "Were you
ever under fire before?" and much surprised at this interest in my
biography, I replied, "Yes, General--in Paris--at the barricades in Forty-
eight." He looked utterly amazed, and inquired, "What the devil did you
think I said?" I explained, when he laughed heartily, and told me that
his question was, "Has there been any firing here before?"

Two very picturesque scenes occur to me. One was a night before the
battle of Gettysburg. The country was mountain and valley, and the two
opposing armies were camped pretty generally in sight of one another.
There was, I suppose, nearly half a cord of wood burning for every twelve
men, and these camp-fires studded the vast landscape like countless
reflections of the stars above, or rather as if all were stars, high or
low. It was one of the most wonderful sights conceivable, and I said at
the time that it was as well worth seeing as Vesuvius in eruption.

Henry had studied for eighteen months in the British Art School in Rome,
and passed weeks in sketching the Alhambra, and, till he received his
wound, took great joy in the picturesque scenery and "points" of military
life. But it is incredible how little we ate or got to eat, and how hard
we worked. It is awful to be set to digging ditches in a soil
nine-tenths _stone_, when starving.

As we were raw recruits, we were not put under fire at Gettysburg, but
kept in Smith's reserve. But on the night after the defeat, when Lee
retreated in such mad and needless haste across the Potomac, we were
camped perhaps the nearest of any troops to the improvised bridge, I
think within a mile. That night I was on guard, and all night long I
heard the sound of cavalry, the ring and rattle of arms, and all that
indicates an army in headlong flight. I say that they went in needless
haste. I may be quite in the wrong, but I ha