es, the hero, Dicaeopolis, makes a
separate peace on his individual account with the Peloponnesians and
drives a brisk trade with the different cantons, the enthusiasm reaching
its height when the Boeotian appears with his ducks and his eels. This
ecstasy can best be understood by those who have seen the capture of a
sutler's wagon by hungry Confederates; and the fantastic vision of a
separate peace became a sober reality at many points on the lines of the
contending parties. The Federal outposts twitted ours with their lack
of coffee and sugar; ours taunted the Federals with their lack of
tobacco. Such gibes often led, despite the officers, to friendly
interchange. So, for instance, a toy-boat which bore the significant
name of a parasite familiar to both sides made regular trips across the
Rappahannock after the dire struggle at Fredericksburg, and promoted
international exchange between "Yank" and "Johnny Reb." The daydream of
Aristophanes became a sober certainty.

The war was not an era of sweetness and light. Perhaps sugar was the
article most missed. Maple sugar was of too limited production to meet
the popular need. Sorghum was a horror then, is a horror to remember
now. It set our teeth on edge and clawed off the coats of our stomachs.
In the army sugar was doled out by pinches, and from the tables of most
citizens it was banished altogether. There were those who solaced
themselves with rye coffee and sorghum molasses regardless of ergot and
acid, but nobler souls would not be untrue to their gastronomic ideal.
Necessity is one thing, mock luxury another. If there had been honey
enough, we should have been on the antique basis; for honey was the
sugar of antiquity, and all our cry for sugar was but an echo of the cry
for honey in the Peloponnesian war. Honey was then, as it is now, one of
the chief products of Attica. It is not likely that the Peloponnesians
took the trouble to burn over the beds of thyme that gave Attic honey
its peculiar flavor, but the Peloponnesians would not have been soldiers
if they had not robbed every beehive on the march; and, sad to relate,
the Athenians must have been forced to import honey. When Dicaeopolis
makes the separate peace mentioned above, he gets up a feast of good
things, and there is a certain unction in the tone with which he orders
the basting of sausage-meat with honey, as one should say mutton and
currant jelly. In The Peace, when War appears and proceeds to make a