es, used to the
sedentary life of profession, or counting-room--and perhaps to the
irregularities of the midnight dinner and next-morning ball--that these
men, steady and unflinching as they might be under fire--and willing as
they seemed to undertake "what man dare" in danger or privation, would
certainly break down under the fatigues of the first campaign.

They had, on the contrary, in every instance that came under my ken,
gone through that campaign most honorably; had borne the marches, the
most trying weather and the greatest straits of hunger, with an
elasticity of mind and muscle that had long since astounded and
silenced their most active scoffers. Now, in the bitter depths of
winter, they went through the dull routine of camp, cheerful and
buoyant, at all times ready for their duty, and never grumbling at the
wearing strain they felt to be necessity. When I say that in every
Confederate camp _the best_ soldiers of that winter were "crack
companies" of the gay youths of the cities, I only echo the verdict of
old and tried officers. Where all did their duty nobly, comparison were
invidious; but the names of "Company F," the Mobile Cadets, the
Richmond Blues, and Washington Artillery, stand on the record of those
dark days as proof of the statement. Many men from the ranks of these
companies had already been promoted to high positions, but they had not
yet lost their distinctive characteristics as _corps d' elite_; and
admission to their ranks was as eagerly sought as ever. A strange fact
of these companies was frequently stated by surgeons of perfect
reliability: their sick reports were much smaller than those of the
hardiest mountain organizations. This they attributed to two causes:
greater attention to personal cleanliness and to all hygienic
precautions; and the exercise of better trained minds and wills keeping
them free from the deadly "blue devils." Numbers of them, of course,
broke down at once. Many a poor fellow who would have achieved a
brilliant future perished mid the mud of Manassas, or slept under the
snowy slopes of the western mountains. The practice was kill or cure,
but it was in a vast majority of cases, the latter; and men who stood
the hardship thrived upon it.

The Marylanders, too, were a marvel of patience. Self-made exiles, not
only from the accustomed comforts of home, but cut off from
communication with their absent ones and harrowed by vague stones of
wrong and violence about them-