"Why do they not now, come boldly out and acknowledge that slavery is a curse to any nation?" said the Preacher Lieutenant. "It caused the Rebellion, and its downfall would be the Rebellion's certain and speedy death. Thousands of years ago, the Almighty cursed with plagues a proud people for refusing to break the bonds of the slave. The day of miracles is past. But war, desolating war, is the scourge with which He punishes our country. The curse of blood is upon the land; by blood must it be expiated. We in the North have been guilty, in common with the whole country, in tolerating, aiding, and abetting the evil. We must have our proportion of punishment. Why cannot the whole country meet the issue boldly as one man, and atone for past offence by unanimity in the abolition of the evil?"
"On the nigger again," said his Junior Lieutenant, assuming, as he spoke, an oratorical attitude. "Why do you not go on and talk about them working out their own salvation, with muskets on their shoulders and bayonets by their sides, and with fear and trembling too, I have no doubt it would be. Carry out your Scripture parallels. Tell how the walls of Jericho fell by horns taken from the woolly heads of rams; but now that miracles are no more, how the walls of this Jericho of Rebeldom are destined to fall before the well-directed butting of the woolly heads themselves. You don't ride your hobby with a stiff rein to-night, Lieutenant."
The taunting air and strained comparison of the Lieutenant enlivened the crowd, but did not in the least affect the Senior, who calmly replied:
"If our Government does not arm the negro on the basis of freedom, the Rebels in their desperation will, and although we have the negro sympathy, we may lose it through delay and inattention, and in that event, prepare for years of conflict. The negroes, at the outset of this Rebellion, were ripe for the contest. Armies of thousands of them might have been in the field to-day. Now the President's Proclamation finds them removed within interior Rebel lines, and to furnish them arms, will first cost severe contests with the Rebels themselves."
The toil of the day and the drowsiness caused by huge meals, gradually dispersed the crowd; but the discussion was continued in quarters by the various messes, until their actual time of retiring.
"Inspection! inspection!" said the Adjutant, on the succeeding afternoon, to the Lieutenant-Colonel for the time being in command of the Regiment, handing him, at the same time, an order for immediate inspection. "Six inspections in two weeks before marching," continued the Adjutant, "and another after a day's march. I wonder whether this Grand Army of the Potomac wouldn't halt when about going into battle, to see whether the men had their shoe-strings tied?"
The Adjutant had barely ceased, when the Inspecting officer, the ranking Colonel of the Brigade, detailed specially for the duty, made his appearance. He was a stout, full-faced man of fifty or upwards, with an odd mixture in his manner of piety and pretension. Report had it that his previous life had been
one of change,—stock-jobber, note-shaver, temperance lecturer, and exhorter—