aiding and abetting the
enemies of his country. If that ain't treason I'd like to know what is."

"The Captain headed off a lot of young regulars the other evening a
little the prettiest," said the Sergeant.

"Let's have it!" said a dozen in the crowd, now considerably increased.

"The Captain," continued the Sergeant, "had asked me to take a walk with
him after dress-parade, and we strolled along the Sharpsburg road
towards Corps Head-quarters. As we got just beyond the house and barn
where the Rebel wounded are, we came upon a crowd of officers,
commissioned and non-commissioned, and some privates. A quite young
officer, with a milk-and-water face and a moustache like mildew on a
damp Hardee, was talking very excitedly about the Administration not
appreciating General McClellan; that there wasn't intellect enough there
to appreciate a really great military genius; that European officers
praised him as our greatest General, and that even the Rebel officers
said that they feared him more than any of our Commanders; and yet all
the while the Abolition Administration tied his hands and fettered his
movements, and all because Little Mac wasn't crazy enough to say that
the Rebels could be subjugated and their armies exterminated, as some
fanatical Regulars and nearly all the Volunteer officers pretend to say.
'Now, I believe,' said the officer, thrusting his thumbs between his
armpits and his vest, and puffing out his breast pompously, 'I believe,
as Little Mac says, 'we can drive them to the wall;' we can lessen the
limits of their country; but, gentlemen, after all, there will have to
be a peace.'

"I thought," said the Sergeant, "the Captain was going to break in upon
him here. He threw back his cap till the rim was on top of his head,
rammed his hands into his pockets, and edged his way a little further
into the crowd, towards the speaker; but he didn't, and the speaker went
on to say:

"'There are the people, too, crazy about a forward movement. Why don't
they come down and shoulder muskets themselves?'

"The Captain could hold in no longer. He drew his hands out of his
pockets, straightened them along his side, like a game rooster
stretching his wings just before a fight, and sidling up to the officer,
looking at him out of the corner of his eye, he burst out--

"'Why don't they shoulder muskets themselves? I'll tell you
why,--because we are here to do it for them. They have sent us, they pay
us, and they've a