The General went on to tell of his struggle to induce the little man
to accept his aid--to accept a loan of a few hundreds of dollars
from Prentice, the banker! "I never had anything hurt me so in all
my life," he said. "Finally I took him into the bank--and now you
can see he has enough to eat!"

They began to sing again, and Montague sat and thought over the
story. It seemed to him typical of the thing that made this meeting
beautiful to him--of the spirit of brotherhood and service that
reigned here.--They sang "We are tenting to-night on the old camp
ground"; they sang "Benny Havens, Oh!" and "A Soldier No More"; they
sang other songs of tenderness and sorrow, and men felt a trembling
in their voices and a mist stealing over their eyes. Upon Montague a
spell was falling.

Over these men and their story there hung a mystery--a presence of
wonder, that discloses itself but rarely to mortals, and only to
those who have dreamed and dared. They had not found it easy to do
their duty; they had had their wives and children, their homes and
friends and familiar places; and all these they had left to serve
the Republic. They had taught themselves a new way of life--they had
forged themselves into an iron sword of war. They had marched and
fought in dust and heat, in pouring rains and driving, icy blasts;
they had become men grim and terrible in spirit-men with limbs of
steel, who could march or ride for days and nights, who could lie
down and sleep upon the ground in rain-storms and winter snows, who
were ready to leap at a word and seize their muskets and rush into
the cannon's mouth. They had learned to stare into the face of
death, to meet its fiery eyes; to march and eat and sleep, to laugh