will always rest on the gallant little
major and his dauntless few whose high enthusiasm broke the spell of
universal disaster, sounding the bugle-notes of victory through the
dreary silence of national despair.

General Fremont's practice in the West was invariably to educate his raw
troops in the presence of an enemy. Whether this was of choice or of
necessity we do not pretend to say; but the fact remains, that the tide
of war was turned back upon our enemies by an army composed of men who
had but just taken up their weapons. We once had the pleasure of hearing
General Fremont explain the system which he pursued with this army; and
we remember being struck with the fact that he laid great stress on
_constant skirmishing_, as the means of acquiring a habit of victory.
We cannot enlarge here upon this interesting topic. We design only to
adduce the circumstance, that the charge at Springfield concluded a
series of five fights within a single week, every one of which resulted
in triumph to our arms with the exception of that at Fredericktown. They
were slight affairs; but, as Fremont so well says, "Little victories
form a habit of victory."

The charge of the Guard we shall not eulogize. It is beyond the praise
of words. It is wonderful that Major Zagonyi should have been able in so
few days to bring into such splendid discipline a body of new recruits.
The Prairie Scouts (who seem to have been a band of brave men under a
dashing young leader) had not the perfect training which carried the
Guard through a murderous fire, to form and charge in the very camp
of the enemy. They plunged into the woods, and commenced a straggling
bush-fight, as they were skilled to do. Worthy of praise in themselves,
(and they have earned it often and received it freely,) the Scouts on
this occasion serve to heighten the effect of that grand combination of
impulse and obedience which makes the perfect soldier.

We cannot but add a word or two (leaving many points of interest
untouched) upon the manner in which Mrs. Fremont has treated her
subject. It is novel, but not ineffective. Zagonyi tells much of the
story in his own words; and we are sure that it loses nothing of
vividness from his terse and vigorous, though not always strictly
grammatical language. "Zagonyi's English," says some one who has heard
it, "is like wood-carving."

The letters of the General himself form one of the most interesting
features of the book. We would only r