genuine and precious. The man was there, has been out two years, has
been through a dozen fights, the superfluous flesh of talking is long
work'd off him, and he gives me little but the hard meat and sinew.
I find it refreshing, these hardy, bright, intuitive, American young
men, (experienc'd soldiers with all their youth.) The vocal play and
significance moves one more than books. Then there hangs something
majestic about a man who has borne his part in battles, especially if
he is very quiet regarding it when you desire him to unbosom. I am
continually lost at the absence of blowing and blowers among these
old-young American militaires. I have found some man or other who has
been in every battle since the war began, and have talk'd with them
about each one in every part of the United States, and many of the
engagements on the rivers and harbors too. I find men here from every
State in the Union, without exception. (There are more Southerners,
especially border State men, in the Union army than is generally
supposed. [A]) I now doubt whether one can get a fair idea of
what this war practically is, or what genuine America is, and her
character, without some such experience as this I am having.


DEATH OF A WISCONSIN OFFICER

Another characteristic scene of that dark and bloody 1863, from notes
of my visit to Armory-square hospital, one hot but pleasant summer
day. In ward H we approach the cot of a young lieutenant of one of the
Wisconsin regiments. Tread the bare board floor lightly here, for the
pain and panting of death are in this cot. I saw the lieutenant when
he was first brought here from Chancellorsville, and have been with
him occasionally from day to day and night to night. He had been
getting along pretty well till night before last, when a sudden