"Sleeping on grassy couches;
Pillowed on hillocks damp;
Of martial fame how little we know
Till brothers are in the camp."

By and by they began to depart. How many they were! How many, many! We
had too lightly let them go. And when all were gone, and they of
Carondelet street and its tributaries, massed in that old gray,
brittle-shanked regiment, the Confederate Guards, were having their
daily dress parade in Coliseum place, and only they and the Foreign
Legion remained; when sister Jane made lint, and flour was high, and
the sounds of commerce were quite hushed, and in the custom-house
gun-carriages were a-making, and in the foundries big guns were being
cast, and the cotton gun-boats and the rams were building, and at the
rotting wharves the masts of a few empty ships stood like dead trees in
a blasted wilderness, and poor soldiers' wives crowded around the "Free
Market," and grass began to spring up in the streets,--they were many
still, while far away; but some marched no more, and others marched on
bleeding feet, in rags; and it was very, very hard for some of us to
hold the voice steady and sing on through the chorus of the little
song:--

"Brave boys are they!
Gone at their country's call.
And yet--and yet--we cannot forget
That many brave boys must fall."

Oh! Shiloh, Shiloh!

But before the gloom had settled down upon us it was a gay dream.

"Mistoo Itchlin, in fact 'ow you ligue my uniefawm? You think it suit my
style? They got about two poun' of gole lace on that uniefawm. Yesseh.
Me, the h-only thing--I don' ligue those epaulette'. So soon ev'ybody
see that on me, 'tis 'Lieut'nan'!' in thiz place, an' 'Lieut'nan'!' in
that place. My de'seh, you'd thing I'm a majo'-gen'l, in fact. Well, of
co'se, I don' ligue that."

"And so you're a lieutenant?"

"Third! Of the Chasseurs-a-Pied! Coon he'p 't, in fact; the fellehs
elected me. Goin' at Pensacola tomaw. Dr. Seveeah _con_tinue my sala'y
whilce I'm gone. no matteh the len'th. Me, I don' care, so long the
sala'y _con_tinue, if that waugh las' ten yeah! You ah pe'haps goin' ad
the ball to-nighd, Mistoo Itchlin? I dunno 'ow 'tis--I suppose you'll be
aztonizh' w'en I infawm you--that ball wemine me of that battle of
Wattaloo! Did you evva yeh those line' of Lawd By'on,--

'Theh was a soun' of wibalwy by night,
W'en--'Ush-'ark!--A deep saun' stwike'--?

Thaz by Lawd By'on. Yesseh. Well"--

The C