re they
come, gayly caparisoned, perfect in every detail of military
equipment, led by elegant officers who may well ride proudly, for each
is a true soldier and a hero. Scarcely less distinguished, save for
the plainer uniform, are the rank and file that follow. Can these be
the same men whom history delights to honor,--the heroes of a hundred
battlefields,--both in the army of Virginia and Tennessee, who,
stripped to the waist, blackened with powder and smoke, bloody with
streaming wounds, still stood to their guns, and, in answer to the
enemy, thundered forth their defiant motto, "_Come and take us!_" And
now--who more peaceful, who more public-spirited, who more kind in
word and deed? Of the Virginia detachment I knew little except their
splendid record. From the fifth company I frequently received patients
during my service with the Army of Tennessee, for, like their comrades
of Virginia, they seemed to be in every battle, and in the thick of
it. In fact, New Orleans and the whole State of Louisiana, like every
city and State in the South, are peopled with veterans and heroes. In
comparatively few cases have military organizations been kept up.
Other duties engross the late Confederates, of whom it may be truly
said their record of citizenship is as excellent as their war record.
If to any reader it occurs that I seem to be doing particular justice
to New Orleans troops, I will say, let the feeling which arises in
your own breast regarding your "very own" plead for me. Remember that
my husband was one of the famous Dreux Battalion, and afterwards of
Gibson's Brigade, also that Louisianians were exiles, and that love of
our home, with sorrow and indignation on account of her humiliation
and chains, drew us very close together. But aside from this natural
feeling there was no shadow of difference in my ministration or in the
affection I bore towards all "my boys."

There was not a single Southern State unrepresented among the bleeding
victims of Chickamauga. From that hardly-contested field, as from many
others, a rich harvest of glory has been reaped and garnered until the
treasure-houses of history are full to overflowing. Glowing accounts
of the splendid deeds of this or that division, brigade, regiment,
company, have immortalized the names of--_their officers_. And what of
the unfaltering _followers_, whose valor supported their brave leaders
and helped to _create_ many a splendid record? Here lay the shattered