t in peace; the material
is being rapidly educated that will make them correspondingly great in
war.

"November's surly blasts" were baring the forests of foliage, when the
order for the last Review by McClellan was read to the Troops. Mutinies
and rumors of mutinies "from the most reliable sources" had been
suspended above the Administration, like the threatening sword of
Damocles; but Abraham's foot was down at last, and beyond murmurings and
mutterings at disaffected Head-Quarters no unsoldierly conduct marked
the reception of the order. So far from the "heavens being hung with
black," as a few man-worshippers in their mad devotion would have
wished, nature smiled beautifully fair. Such a sight could only be
realized in Republican America. A military Commander of the greatest
army upon the Continent, elevated in the vain-glory of dependent
subordinates into a quasi-Dictatorship, was suddenly lowered from his
high position, and his late Troops march to this last Review with the
quiet formality of a dress parade. What cared those stern,
self-sacrificing men in ranks, from whose bayonets that brilliant sun
glistened in diamond splendor, for the magic of a name--the majesty of a
Staff, gorgeous, although not clothed in the uniform desired by its late
Chief. The measure of payment for toil and sacrifice with them, was
progress in the prosecution of their holy cause. The thunders of the
artillery that welcomed _him_ with the honor due to his rank, reminded
_them_ to how little purpose, through shortcomings upon his part, those
same pieces had thundered upon the Peninsula and at Antietam.

Massed in close columns by division along the main road leading to
Warrenton, the troops awaited the last of the grand pageants that had
made the Army of the Potomac famous for reviews. Its late Commander, as
he gracefully sat his bay, had not the nonchalance of manner that he
manifested while reading a note and accompanying our earnest President
in a former review at Sharpsburg; nor was the quiet dignity that he
usually exhibited when at the head of his Staff, apparent. His manner
seemed nervous, his look doubly anxious; troubled in the present, and
solicitous as to the future. Conscious, too, doubtless, as he faced a
nation's Representatives in arms, how he had "kept the word of promise
to the ear," and how "he had broken it to the hope;" how while his
reviews had revealed a mighty army of undoubted ability and eagerness
for the fight