e, and all the earnestness of deadly hatred and
blind fanaticism upon the other. An enemy vulnerable in many ways, and
no matter how many loyal lives were lost, money expended by the
protraction of the war, but to be assailed in one. But why multiply? Ten
thousand reasons might be assigned why a military leader, without an
aggressive policy of warfare, unwilling to employ fully the resources
committed to him, should not succeed in the suppression of a Rebellion.
The nation suffered much in the treason that used its high position to
cloak the early rebel movement to arms, and delayed our own
preparations; but more in the incapacity or half-heartedness that made
miserable use of the rich materials so spontaneously furnished.

In the improvement of the Regiment the delay at the Sharpsburg camp was
not lost. The limited ground was well used, and Company and Battalion
drills steadily persevered in, brought the Regiment to a proficiency
rarely noticed in regiments much longer in the field.

"Three days' cooked rations, sixty rounds of ammunition, and under arms
at four in the morning. How do you like the smack of that, Tom?"

"It smacks of war," says Tom, "and it's high time." The first speaker
had doffed the gown of the student in his senior year, greatly against
the wishes of parents and friends, to don the livery of Uncle Sam. One
would scarcely have recognised in the rough sunburned countenance,
surmounted by a closely fitting cap, once blue but now almost red, and
not from the blood of any battle-field--in the course slovenly worn blue
blouse pantaloons, unevenly suspended, and wide unblacked army shoes,
the well dressed, graceful accomplished student that commended himself
to almost universal admiration among the young ladies of his
acquaintance. The second speaker, thinking that a more opportune war had
never occurred to demand the silence of the law amid resounding arms,
had left his desk in an attorney's office, shelved his Blackstone, and
with a courage that never flinched in the field of strife or in toilsome
marches where it can perhaps be subjected to a severer test, had
thoroughly shown that the resolution with which he committed himself to
the war was one upon which no backward step would be taken. They were
old friends, and fast messmates. Their little dog-tent, as the shelter
tents were called, had heard from each many an earnest wish that their
letters might smell of powder.

The feeling then with which G