and he went for his subjects far out of the beaten
track, treating them afterward with marked boldness and dash.

"Drewry's Bluff" was a boldly-handled sketch of what the northern army
persisted in calling "Fort Darling." It showed the same venturesome
originality in color-use, the same breadth and fidelity that marked Mr.
Key's later pictures of Sumter, Charleston harbor and scenes on the
James river.

These pictures named in common, with minor sketches from pencils less
known at that time--among them that of William L. Sheppard, now famous
as graphic delineator of southern scenes--illustrate both the details
of the unique war, and the taste and heart of those who made it. Amid
battles, sieges and sorrows, the mimic world behind the Chinese wall
revolved on axis of its own. War was the business of life to every man;
but, in the short pauses of its active strife, were shown both the
taste and talent for the prettiest pursuits of peace. And the
apparently unsurmountable difficulties, through which these were
essayed, makes their even partial development more remarkable still.

The press, the literature and the art of the Southern
Confederacy--looked at in the light of her valor and endurance, shining
from her hundred battle-fields--emphasize strongly the inborn nature of
her people. And, while there were many whom the limits of this sketch
leave unnamed, that sin of omission will not be registered against the
author; for the men of the South--even in minor matters--did their work
for the object and for the cause; not for self-illustration.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

WIT AND HUMOR OF THE WAR.

If it be true that Sir Philip Sidney, burning with fever of his
death-wound, reproved the soldier who brought him water in his helmet,
that "he wasted a casque-full on a dying man," then humor borrowed
largely of heroism.

Many a ragged rebel--worn with hunger and anxiety for the cause, or for
those absent loved ones who suffered for it--was as gallant as Sidney
in the fray; many a one bore his bitter trial with the same gay heart.

We have seen that the southron, war-worn, starving, could pour out his
soul in noble song. Equally plain is it, that he rose in defiant glee
over his own sufferings; striving to drown the sigh in a peal of
resonant laughter. For humorous poetry abounds among all southern
war-collections; some of it polished and keen in its satire; most of it
striking hard and "straight-from-the-shoulder" blows at