ee some of our brother officers. While he
was away I became so ill again that the doctor had to put me under
the influence of chloroform. When Hill came back in the evening
he cursed himself for all that was mean in the world for having
left me even for an hour. That's the kind of friends and comrades
soldiers are! As soon as I was well enough to travel, Hill took
me to his home at Culpeper Court-House in Virginia. There they
kept me quite a long time. That dear old gentleman, his father,
brought to my bedside every morning a brandy mint-julep, made with
his own hand, to drink before I got up. Under its benign influence
my recovery was very rapid. But let none of my young friends forget
that the best gifts of Providence are those most liable to be
abused. The wise Virginian never offered me too many of them. By
the first of December Hill and I went together to West Point, I to
report for duty, and he to visit his numerous warm friends at that
delightful station. There we parted, in December, 1855, never to
meet again. With the glad tidings from Virginia that peace was
near, there came to me in North Carolina the report that Lieutenant-
General A. P. Hill had been killed in the last battle at Petersburg.
A keen pang shot through my heart, for he had not ceased to be
esteemed as my kind friend and brother, though for four years
numbered among the public enemy. His sense of duty, so false in
my judgment, I yet knew to be sincere, because I knew the man. I
wish all my fellow-citizens, North and South, East and West, could
know each other as well as I knew A. P. Hill.

IN THE DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY AT WEST POINT

I was assigned to duty in the department of philosophy, under
Professor W. H. C. Bartlett, one of the ablest, most highly esteemed,
and most beloved of the great men who have placed the United States
Military Academy among the foremost institutions of the world. At
first it seemed a little strange to be called back, after the lapse
of only two years, to an important duty at the place where my
military record had been so "bad." But I soon found that at West
Point, as elsewhere, the standard of merit depended somewhat upon
the point of view of the judge. A master of "philosophy" could
not afford to look too closely into past records in other subjects.
Besides, philosophers know, if others do not, that philosophers
are sure to profit by healthful experience. I never h