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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
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