which
the civilian soul naturally resorts in every time of trouble, were soon
laid aside, and the only artillery to which the extemporized warriors
were exposed was the artillery of jests. Even now survivors of those
days recur to the tumultuous excitement of that Pawnee Sunday as among
the memorable things of the war, and never without merriment. Perhaps
nobody expected serious resistance to be made by the clergymen and the
department clerks and the business men who armed themselves for the
fray. Home guards were familiar butts on both sides of the line, but
home guards have been known to die in battle, and death in battle is
supposed to be rather tragic than otherwise. Nor is the tragedy made
less tragic by the age of the combatant. The ancients thought a young
warrior dead something fair to behold. To Greek poet and Roman poet
alike an aged warrior is a pitiable spectacle. No one is likely to
forget Virgil's Priam, Tyrtaeus' description of an old soldier on the
field of battle came up to me more than once, and there is stamped
forever on my mind the image of one dying Confederate, "with white hair
and hoary beard, breathing out his brave soul in the dust" on the
western bank of the fair Shenandoah. Yet a few weeks before, that same
old Confederate, as a member of the awkward squad, would have been a
legitimate object of ridicule; and so the heroes of the Pawnee war, the
belted knights, or knights who would have been belted could belts have
been found for their civic girth, were twitted with their heroism.

[Note: Tyrtaeus Fr. 8, 23:

[Greek: ede leukon echonta kare polion te geneion thymon apopneiont'
alkimon en konie].

The first line is taken from Il. 22, 74. I do not continue the citation
because the Homeric passage has not been subjected to the refining
process of Mr. MURRAY'S redactors of the Iliad.]

[Note: The Bloody Angle, May 12, 1864, an unforgettable date.]

[Note: Girl in the Carpathians and Scholar in Politics are titles of
current publications taken at random to illustrate the personal element
and its unfitness.]

But our scares were not confined to scares that came from Richmond. One
cavalry raid came up to our very doors, and Custer and his men were
repelled by a handful of reserve artillerymen. Our home guard was
summoned more than once to defend Rockfish Gap, and I remember one long
summer night spent as a mounted picket on the road to Palmyra. Every
battle in that "dancing ground of war" br