insignificant fights in the war. But there were more men killed in half
an hour in that almost forgotten battle, than in all this mighty war we
hear so much about. Ah!" he continued, "they think we are vastly
gratified when they 'fraternise' with us on our battlefields and
decorate the graves of our dead. I don't know but I prefer the 'waving
of the bloody shirt' to this flaunting of the olive-branch. They have
their victory; let them leave us our graves."

An intense loyalty, not only to the political theories of the South, but
to the memory of the men who died for them--"qui bene pro patria cum
patriaque jacent"--still animates the survivors of the war. With a
confessed but none the less pathetic illogicality, they feel as though
Death had not gone to work impartially, but had selected for his prey
the noblest and the best. One of these survivors, in a paper now before
me, quotes from _Das Siegesfest_ the line--

"Ja, der Krieg verschlingt die Besten!"

and then remarks: "Still, when Schiller says:--

'Denn Patroklus liegt begraben,
Und Thersites kommt zurück,'

his illustration is only half right. The Greek Thersites did not return
to claim a pension."

The dash of bitterness in this remark must not be taken too seriously.
The fact remains, however, that among the veterans of the South there
prevails a certain feeling of aloofness from the national jubilation
over the Spanish War. They "don't take much stock in it." The feeling is