d the objects
about me, half seen and half hidden, in some way suggest the
half-remembered and half-forgotten incidents of childhood.

How often, when a boy, have I dreamed of scenes similar to those through
which I have passed in the last two years! Knightly warriors, great
armies on the march and in camp, the skirmish, the tumult and thunder of
battle, were then things of the imagination; but now they have become
familiar items of daily life. Then a single tap of the drum or note of
the bugle awakened thoughts of the old times of chivalry, and regrets
that the days of glory had passed away. Now we have martial strains
almost every hour, and are reminded only of the various duties of our
every-day life.

As we went to Stevenson this morning, Hobart caught a glimpse of a
colored man coming toward us. It suggested to him a hobby which he rides
now every day, and he commenced his oration by saying, in his
declamatory way: "The negro is the coming man." "Yes," I interrupted,
"so I see, and he appears to have his hat full of peaches;" and so the
coming man had.

28. Rode to the river with Hobart and Stanley. The rebel pickets were
lying about in plain view on the other side. Just before our arrival
quite a number of them had been bathing. The outposts of the two armies
appear still to be on friendly terms. "Yesterday," a soldier said to me,
"one of our boys crossed the river, talked with the rebs for some time,
and returned."

29. The band is playing "Yankee Doodle," and the boys break into an
occasional cheer by way of indorsement. There is something defiant in
the air of "Doodle" as he blows away on the soil of the cavaliers, which
strikes a noisy chord in the breast of Uncle Sam's nephews, and the
demonstrations which follow are equivalent to "Let 'er rip," "Go in old
boy."

Colonel Hobart's emphatic expression is "egad." He told me to-day of a
favorite horse at home, which would follow him from place to place as he
worked in the garden, keeping his nose as near to him as possible. His
wife remarked to him one day: "Egad, husband, if you loved me as well as
you do that horse, I should be perfectly happy."

"Are you quite sure Mrs. Hobart said 'egad,' Colonel?"

"Well, no, I wouldn't like to swear to that."

This afternoon Colonels Stanley, Hobart, and I rode down to the
Tennessee to look at the pontoon bridge which has been thrown across the
river. On the way we met Generals Rosecrans, McCook, Negley, and
Garf