hern sympathies
or affinities, or who may have conscientious scruples about fighting
against our 'Southern brethren,'--to take a snug salary in some peaceful
department, or to go on recruiting service in quiet towns, where
grasshoppers can be heard singing for squares, and where he is under the
necessity of killing nothing but time, and wounding nothing but his
country's honor and his own, if a man of that description can be said to
possess any. In their offices, these half-hearted Lieutenants, Captains,
and Colonels, are like satraps in their halls, unapproachable, except by
passing bayonets that should be turned towards Richmond."

"Well, if I don't understand it," resumed the Captain, "it is high time
that Uncle Sam understood it. If these men are half-hearted, they will
write no better than they fight, and I guess if the truth could be got
at, they are responsible for most of the clogging in the Commissary and
Quarter-Master Departments. But you've got me off my story. At ten
o'clock I staved in, just as I was, my uniform shabby, and my boots
with a tolerably fair representation of Aquia mud upon them. Passing
from one orderly to another, I brought up at the Adjutant-General's
office, and there I was referred to the head clerk's office, and there a
pleasant-looking, gentlemanly Major told me that the matter would be
certainly set straight as soon as the court-martial records were
forwarded; that they had telegraphed for them again and again; and that
at one time they were reported lost, and at another carried off by one
of General Burnside's Staff Officers. As I had heard of records of the
kind being delayed before, I intimated rather plainly what I thought of
the matter, and told him that I wanted to see the Secretary himself. He
smiled, and told me to take my place in the rear of an odd-looking mixed
assemblage of persons in the hall, who were crowding towards an open
door. It was after two o'clock and after I had stood until I felt
devotional about the knees, when my turn brought me before the door, and
showed me Mr. Secretary himself, standing behind a desk, tossing his
head, now on this side and now on that, with quick jerks, like a
short-horned bull in fly time, despatching business and the hopes of the
parties who had it from their looks, about the same time. Right manfully
did he stand up to his work; better than to his word perhaps, if reports
that I have heard be true."

"A pretty-faced, middle-aged lady