unselling youth, and I had so many
proofs of his good-will, even of his affection, that I trusted him fully
in regard to myself; yet, with all this, I felt that his great
knowledge, and especially his wonderful alertness of judgment, which
amounted in many cases seemingly to prophetic power almost, were
doubtful quantities in relation to the war. I believed that he was
admitted to high council; I had frequent glimpses of
intimations--seemingly unguarded on his part--that he knew beforehand
circumstances and projects not properly to be spoken of; but somehow,
from a look, or a word, or a movement now and then, I had almost reached
the opinion that Dr. Khayme was absolutely neutral between the
contestants in the war of the rebellion. He never showed anxiety. The
news of the Ball's Bluff disaster, which touched so keenly the heart of
the North, and especially of Massachusetts, gave him no distress, to
judge from his impassive face and his manner; yet it is but just to
repeat that he showed great interest in every event directly relating to
the existence of slavery. He commended the acts of General Butler in
Virginia and General Fremont in Missouri, and hoped that the Southern
leaders would impress all able-bodied slaves into some sort of service,
so that they would become at least morally subject to the act of
Congress, approved August 6, which declared all such persons discharged
from previous servitude. In comparing my own attitude to the war with
the Doctor's, I frequently thought that he cared nothing for the Union,
and I cared everything; that he was concerned only in regard to human
slavery, while I was willing for the States themselves to settle that
matter; for I could see no constitutional power existing in the Congress
or in the President to abolish or even mitigate slavery without the
consent of the party of the first part. I was in the war not on account
of slavery, certainly, but on account of the preservation of the Union;
Dr. Khayme was in the war--so far as he was in it at all--not for the
Union, but for the abolition of slavery.

On this night of February 6, the Doctor smoked and read and occasionally
gave utterance to some thought.

"Jones," said he, "we are going to have news from the West; Grant
advances."

"I trust he will have better luck than McDowell had," was my reply.

"He will; I don't know that he is a better general, but he has the help
of the navy."

"But the rebels have their river batt