devise plans for averting war, but Folly shook her locks tauntingly,
and said mockingly, "Ha! ha! War is pleasant pastime." So the
culmination was reached, and a misguided people, clamorous for war,
sounded the tocsin that caused rivers of blood to flow from
brothers' hearts, and enshrouded a grand and happy people in
desolation and disgrace.

At the time when the war-cloud of fratricidal conflict was rolling
dark and broad over the land, a treacherous enemy on the border were
menacing and even destroying many of our country's peaceful
citizens. Upon the broad frontier at the Far West it became the duty
of the government to hold these wily foes in check by a strong and
reliable armed force. To this north-western outpost of service
Captain Marshall had been ordered by the voice of his country. Not
ordered there as to a holiday excursion, but ordered into actual
bloody conflict, and to an ordeal that would have tried the bravery
and courage of a veteran. At the head of his command, Company A, 3d
Regiment U. S. Regulars, Captain Marshall reached this post of
danger in the hour of its most imminent peril. But for this timely
arrival of troops, the peaceful little town of Minneopoli might have
been laid waste, and its defenceless inhabitants cruelly butchered
or carried away captive. But the premeditated destruction of the
town was averted, the treacherous "red-skins" disappointed, and
Captain Marshall's bravery demonstrated beyond a peradventure.

It was the night after the attack of the Indians, and the bloody
repulse. All was quiet. The troops were reassembled in camp. The
usual garrulity of the soldiers was checked by the recollection of
their dead comrades, so recently laid to rest in soldiers' graves.
All, too, remembered the danger through which they had passed, and