of the armies that fought at Shiloh, and Bull Run, and Fort Republic;
at Seven Pines, Gaines's Mill, and Cold Harbor; at Antietam, Fredericksburg,
Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg; at Franklin, Atlanta, Murfreesboro,
and Chickamauga, Spottsylvania, the Wilderness, and Petersburg;
and the whole South, Union as it is now and ready to fight
the nation's battles, gathered to glorify Lee, the old commander,
and to see and glorify the survivors of those and other bloody fields
in which the volunteer soldiers of the South had held the world at bay,
and added to the glorious history of their race. Men came all the way
from Oregon and California to be present. Old one-legged soldiers stumped it
from West Virginia. Even "No. 4", though in the gutter, caught the contagion,
and shaped up and became sober. He got a good suit of clothes somewhere --
not new -- and appeared quite respectable. He even got something to do,
and, in token of what he had been, was put on one of the many committees
having a hand in the entertainment arrangements. I never saw a greater change
in anyone. It looked as if there was hope for him yet. He stopped me
on the street a day or two before the unveiling and told me he had
a piece of good news: the remnant of his old company was to be here;
he had got hold of the last one, -- there were nine of them left, --
and he had his old jacket that he had worn in the war, and he was going
to wear it on the march. "It's worn, of course," he said, "but my mother
put some patches over the holes, and except for the stain on it
it's in good order. I believe I am the only one of the boys that has
his jacket still; my mother kept this for me; I have never got so hard up
as to part with it. I'm all right now. I mean to be buried in it."

I had never remarked before what a refined face he had;
his enthusiasm made him look younger than I had ever seen him.

I saw him on the day before the eve of the unveiling; he was as busy as a bee,