m into his pocket or on his back, and it took
all of a mother's skill to gather these things up into the least
possible space, that her boy might have in the camp life all that a
mother's love could give him. The Government would furnish the guns, the
powder, the lead, the canteen and knapsack and haversack; the tinshop,
the tincup; the shoemaker, the boots; the bookstore, the Bible (every
boy must carry a Bible), but all the clothing, all the little necessary
articles for comfort and health, must be manufactured in the home. Did
you ever open the outside casing of one of these large patent beehives
and see the bees at work inside? What rushing and pushing and confusion!
Every bee, so far as human eye can see, seems busy. This beehive was but
a replica of a Virginia home in the spring of 1861.

While these things were going on in the home the boys were drilling in
the field, for they were now out of school. All were anxious to get
their equipment, and to be the first to offer their services to the
Governor.

Had these boys any conception of what they were rushing into? Suppose
just at this time the curtain had been lifted, and they could have seen
Bull Run and Seven Pines, Manassas and Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg and
Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and The Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Cold
Harbor and Appomattox? And if they could have seen a picture of their
homes and fields as they appeared in 1865, would they have rushed on?
Perhaps I can answer that question by pointing to the battlefield of New
Market. In the fall of 1864, after nearly all the great battles had been
fought, the young cadets from Lexington, Va., who had not yet been under
fire, but with a full knowledge of what war meant, rushed into this
battle like veterans and were mowed down as grain, their little bodies
lying scattered over the field like sheaves of wheat.

"O war, thou hast thy fierce delight,
Thy gleams of joy intensely bright;
Such gleams as from thy polished shield
Fly dazzling o'er the battle-field."

Yes, war has its bright, attractive side, and those boys, as I knew
them, would have looked at these moving-pictures as they came one after
another into view, and then perhaps have turned pale; perhaps they would
have shuddered and then cried out, "On with the dance; let joy be
unconfined;" and it was literally on with the dance. School, as I have
just said, was out, and every laddie had his lassie, and you may be sure
they improved