patient politicians and newspapers, as to be scarcely responsible for his acts. This may be said of all the commanders in the beginning of the war, and notably of Albert Sidney Johnston, whose early fall on the field of Shiloh was irreparable, and mayhap determined the fate of the South. M'Dowell's plan of battle was excellent, and its execution by his mob no worse than might have been confidently expected. The late Governor Andrew of Massachusetts observed that his men thought they were going to a town meeting, and this is exhaustive criticism. With soldiers at his disposal, M'Dowell would have succeeded in turning and overwhelming Beauregard's left, driving him from his rail communications with Richmond, and preventing the junction of Johnston from the valley. It appears that Beauregard was to some extent surprised by the attack, contemplating movements by his own centre and right. His exposed and weak left stubbornly resisted the shock of attacking masses, while he, with coolness and personal daring most inspiriting to his men, brought up assistance from centre and right; and the ground was held until Johnston, who had skilfully eluded Patterson, arrived and began feeding our line, when the affair was soon decided.

There can be little question that with a strong brigade of soldiers Johnston could have gone to Washington and Baltimore. Whether, with his means, he should have advanced, has been too much and angrily discussed already. Napoleon held that, no matter how great the confusion and exhaustion of a victorious army might be, a defeated one

must be a hundredfold worse, and action should be based on this. Assuredly, if there be justification in disregarding an axiom of Napoleon, the wild confusion of the Confederates after Manassas afforded it.

The first skirmishes and actions of the war proved that the Southron, untrained, was a better fighter than the Northerner-not because of more courage, but of the social and economic condition by which he was surrounded. Devoted to agriculture in a sparsely populated country, the Southron was selfreliant, a practised horseman, and skilled in the use of arms. The dense population of the North, the habit of association for commercial and manufacturing purposes, weakened individuality of character, and horsemanship and the use of arms were exceptional accomplishments. The rapid development of railways and manufactures in the West had assimilated the people of that region to their eastern neighbours, and the old race of frontier riflemen had wandered to the far interior of the continent. Instruction and discipline soon equalised differences, and battles were decided by generalship and numbers; and this was the experience of our kinsmen in their great civil war. The country squires who followed the banners of Newcastle and Rupert at first swept the easterncounties yeomanry and the London train-bands from the field; but fiery and impetuous valour was at last overmatched by the disciplined purpose and stubborn constancy of Cromwell's Ironsides.

The value of the "initiative" in war cannot be overstated. It surpasses in power mere accession of numbers, as it requires neither transport nor com

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missariat. Holding it, a commander lays his plans deliberately, and executes them at his own appointed time and in his own way. The "defensive" is weak, lowering the morale of the army reduced to it, enforcing constant watchfulness lest threatened attacks become real, and keeping commander and troops in a state of anxious tension. These truisms would not deserve mention did not the public mind ignore the fact that their application is limited to trained soldiers, and often become impatient for the employment of proved ability to sustain sieges and hold lines in offensive movements. A collection of untrained men is neither more nor less than a mob, in which individual courage goes for nothing. In movement each person finds his liberty of action merged in a crowd, ignorant and incapable of direction. Every obstacle creates confusion, speedily converted into panic by opposition. The heroic defenders of Saragossa could not for a moment have faced a battalion of French infantry in the open field. Osman's solitary attempt to operate outside of Plevna met with no success; and the recent defeat of Moukhtar may be ascribed to incaution in taking position too far from his line of defence, where, when attacked, manœuvres of which his people were incapable became necessary.

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CHAPTER III.

AFTER MANASSAS.

AFTER the action at Manassas, the summer and winter of 1861 wore away without movements of special note in our quarter, excepting the defeat of the Federals at Ball's Bluff, on the Potomac, by a detached brigade of Confederates, commanded by General Evans of South Carolina, a West-Pointer enjoying the sobriquet of "Shanks" from the thinness of his legs.

In the organisation of our army, my regiment was brigaded with the 6th, 7th, and 8th regiments of the Louisiana infantry, and placed under General William H. T. Walker of Georgia. Graduated from West Point in the summer of 1837, this officer joined the 6th United States infantry operating against the Seminoles in Florida. On Christmas-day following was fought the battle of Okeechobee, the severest fight of that Indian war. The savages were posted on a thickly jungled island in the lake, through the waters of which, breast-high, the troops advanced several hundred yards to the attack. The loss on our side was heavy, but the Indians were so com

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pletely routed as to break their spirit. Colonel Zachary Taylor commanded, and there won his yellow sash and grade. Walker was desperately wounded, and the medical people gave him up; but he laughed at their predictions and recovered. In the war with Mexico, assaulting Molino del Rey, he received several wounds, all pronounced fatal, and science thought itself avenged. Again he got well, as he said, to spite the doctors. Always a martyr to asthma, he rarely enjoyed sleep but in a sitting posture; yet he was as cheerful and full of restless activity as the celebrated Earl of Peterborough. Peace with Mexico established, Walker became commandant of cadets at West Point. His ability as an instructor, and his lofty, martial bearing, deeply impressed his new brigade and prepared it for stern work. Subsequently Walker died on the field near Atlanta, defending the soil of his native State-a death of all others he would have chosen. I have dwelt somewhat on his character, because it was one of the strangest I have met. No enterprise was too rash to awaken his ardour, if it necessitated daring courage and self-devotion. Truly, he might have come forth from the pages of old Froissart. It is with unaffected feeling that I recall his memory and hang before it my humble wreath of immortelles.

In camp our army experienced much suffering and loss of strength. Drawn almost exclusively from rural districts, where families lived isolated, the men were scourged with mumps, whooping-cough, and measles, diseases readily overcome by childhood in urban populations. Measles proved as virulent as