ations (except as to smoking),
never for a moment doubting the final result. That lesson taught
me that innocence and justice sometimes need powerful backing.
Implicit trust in Providence does not seem to justify any neglect
to employ also the biggest battalions and the heaviest guns.

JAMES B. McPHERSON

During all that time I continued to live with my old room-mate,
James B. McPherson, in a tower room and an adjoining bedroom, which
LaRhett L. Livingston also shared. I had been corporal, sergeant,
and lieutenant up to the time of my dismissal; hence the duties of
private were a little difficult, and I found it hard to avoid
demerits; but with some help from our kind-hearted inspecting
officer, Milton Cogswell,--bless his memory!--I contrived to get
off with 196 demerits in a possible 200 that last year. In a mild
way, McPherson was also a little under a cloud at that time. He
had been first captain of the battalion and squad marcher of the
class at engineering drill. In this latter capacity he also had
committed the offense of not reporting some of the class for
indulging in unauthorized sport. The offense was not so grave as
mine, and, besides, his military record was very much better. So
he was let off with a large demerit mark and a sort of honorable
retirement to the office of quartermaster of the battalion. I
still think, as I did then, that McPherson's punishment was the
more appropriate. Livingston was one of those charming, amiable
fellows with whom nobody could well find any fault, though I believe
he did get a good many demerits. He also seemed to need the aid
of tobacco in his studies. William P. Craighill, who succeeded
McPherson as first captain, had no fault whatever, that I ever
heard of, except one--that was, standing too high for his age. He
was a beardless youth, only five feet high and sixteen years old
when he entered the academy; yet he was so inconsiderate as to keep
ahead of me all the time in everything but tactics, and that was
of no consequence to him, for he was not destined to command troops
in the field, while, as it turned out, I was. It has always seemed
to me a little strange that the one branch which I never expected
to use afterward was the only study in which I graduated at the
head. Perhaps McPherson and Craighill thought, as I did, that it
made no difference where I stood in tactics.

Among all the tactical