ened, their chairs drawn
very close, their hands touching with a thrill,--the young soldier and
his affianced had made their courtship. I sometimes sat breathless,
thinking that their figures had come back, and that I heard them
whispering.

Hill was a Virginian,--large, hospitable, severe, proud,--and once I
ventured to speak upon the policy of slavery, with a view to develop his
own relation to the "institution." He said, with the swaggering manner
of his class, that slavery was a "domestic" institution, and that
therefore no political law could reach it. I insinuated, quietly, that
no political law should therefore sustain it, and took exception to the
idea that what was domestic was therefore without the province of
legislation. When I exampled polygamy, Hill became passionate, and asked
if I was an abolitionist. I opined that I was not, and he so far
relented as to say that slavery was sanctioned by divine and human laws;
that it was ultimately to be embraced by all white nationalities, and
that the Caucasian was certain, in the end, to subjugate and possess
every other race. He pointed, with some shrewdness, to the condition of
the Chinese in California and Australia, and epitomized the gradual
enslaving of the Mongol and Malay in various quarters of the world.

"As to our treatment of niggers," he said, curtly, "I never prevaricate,
as some masters do, in that respect. I whip my niggers when they want
it! If they are saucy, or careless, or lazy, I have 'em flogged. About
twice a year every nigger has to be punished. If they ain't roped over
twice a year, they take on airs and want to be gentlemen. A nigger is
bound by no sentiment of duty or affection. You must keep him in trim by
fear."

Among the victims of the swamp fever, were Major Larrabee, and
Lieutenant-Colonel Emory, of the Fifth Wisconsin regiment; I had been
indebted to them for many a meal and draught of spirits. I had talked
with each of them, when the camps were darkened and the soldiery asleep.
Larrabee was a soldier by nature,--adventurous, energetic, intrepid,
aggressive. He had been a country Judge in Wisconsin, and afterwards a
member of Congress. When the war commenced, he enlisted as a common
soldier, but public sentiment forced the State Government to make him a
Major. Emory was a mild, reflective, unimpassioned gentleman,--too
modest to be eminent, too scrupulous to be ambitious. The men were
opposites, but both capital companions, and t