place, and we at the North too fondly hoped that all was over and that
we might confidently settle down to peace. When going west to Buffalo
for a visit I was delayed a few hours at Syracuse and took the
occasion to call on an intimate friend of my father and myself, the
Rev. Samuel J. May. Mr. May, a bright and beautiful spirit, was by
nature a strong peace man, but, fired by the woes of the slave, he
had become an extreme abolitionist and was ready to fight for his
principles. Entering Mr. May's quiet study I found him in intimate
talk with a man of unassuming demeanour, in citizen's dress, marked by
no distinction of face or figure. He might have been a delegate to
a peace convention, or a country minister from way-back calling on a
professional brother. What was my astonishment when Mr. May introduced
him as Major-General Henry W. Slocum, commander of the Twelfth Corps,
who, taking a short furlough after Gettysburg, was at home for the
moment and had dropped in for a friendly call. Slocum had been in the
thick of most of the bitter Virginia battles from the first, and all
the world knew that at Gettysburg, by beating back the thrust of
the Stonewall division toward the Baltimore pike, he had secured the
threatened rear of the army of the Potomac and averted defeat. This
had taken place in the preceding month, and I naturally marvelled that
the unpretending, simple man could be that victorious champion,
but for the time being we were there plain citizens, and, American
fashion, the Major-General and the Corporal shook hands and
fraternised on equal terms. It probably helped me with Slocum that I
too had been in danger. About the time he was defending Culp's Hill, I
had been in the ditch at the foot of the Port Hudson rampart.

While reticent as to his part at Gettysburg, he spoke with feeling of
what his corps had been through, and knowing that both Mr. May and
I were Massachusetts men took an evident pleasure in commending the