s from abroad were placed, the officer continued--

"But the General brings good news from Washington. The Colonel and
Lieutenant-Colonel of the 210th return at an early day."

"Yes, sir, that is so," broke in our Western Virginia Captain, who had
just returned from enjoying one of the furloughs at that time so freely
distributed. "At last the War Department, or rather Mr. Secretary
Stanton, for all the balance of the department, as far as I could learn,
thought the delay outrageous, fulfils its promise. After the
Lieutenant-Colonel had been at home on a sick leave for some time, and
we all thought the matter about dropped; what should I see one day but
his name, with thirty-two others, in a daily, under the head of
'Dismissals from the Army.' There it was, dismissed for doing his duty,
and published right among the names of scoundrels who had skulked five
times from the battle-field; men charged with drunkenness, and every
offence known to the Military Decalogue. My furlough had just come, and
I started for Washington by the next boat, bound to see how the matter
stood. The morning after I got there, I posted up bright and early to
the War Department, but a sergeant near the door, with more polish on
his boots than in his manners, told me that I had better keep shady
until ten o'clock, as business hours commenced then. I sat down on a
pile of old lumber near by, and passed very nearly three hours in
wondering why so many broad-shouldered fellows, who could make a sabre
fall as heavy as the blow of a broad-axe, were lounging about or going
backward and forward upon errands that sickly boys might do as well. As
it grew nearer ten, able-bodied, bright-looking officers, Regulars, as I
was told, educated at Uncle Sam's expense to fight, elegantly
shoulder-strapped, passed in to drive quills in a quiet department,
'remote from death's alarms,' and I wondered if some spirited clerks and
schoolmasters that I knew, who would have been willing to have gone bent
double under knapsacks, if the Surgeon would have accepted them, would
not have performed the duty better, and have permitted the country to
have the benefit of the military education of these gentlemen."

"I see, Captain, that you don't understand it," interrupted an officer.
"Our Regular Officers are not all alike patriotic up to the fighting
point; and it is a charitable provision that permits one, say,--who is
married to a plantation of niggers, or who has other Sout