only barbarians could inflict, for no
cause but the gallant defence of the national honor and authority
against a slaveholders' rebellion.

But perhaps no coincidence is more impressive in the late experience of
a Union soldier in Virginia than the associations then and there
awakened by the recurrence of the anniversary of the birth of her
noblest son and our matchless patriot:

'The 22d of February, 1863--the anniversary of Washington's
birthday--will long be remembered,' writes one, 'by the Army of the
Potomac. Encamped, as it is, on the very spot where he--'whom God
made childless that a nation might call him father'--passed most of
his youthful days, the thoughts of all naturally revert to the
history of that great man, and particularly to that part of his
early life, when, within the sacred precincts of home, a mother's
care laid the foundation of that high moral character which in
after life gave tone to both his civil and military career. Within
one mile of the spot where I am now writing these lines, George
Washington lived from the fourth to the sixteenth year of his age.
The river, the hills, and dales, now so familiar to the soldiers
composing this army, were the same then as to-day, and were the
scene of his early gambols, his youthful joys and sorrows. Over
these hills he wandered in the manly pursuits for which he was at
that early period distinguished above his fellows, and which
prepared him for enduring the hardships of the position he was
destined to fill; here, too, is where tradition says he
accomplished the feat of throwing a stone across the Rappahannock,
and here, too, stood the traditional cherry tree, about the
destruction of which with his little hatchet he would not utter a
falsehood. Yonder, just across the Rappahannock, in a small,
unostentatious burying ground, the immortal remains of 'Mary,
mother of Washington,' were buried--sacred spot, now desecrated by
the presence of the enemies of those principles which her honored
son spent the energies of his life to establish for the benefit of
all mankind. When we think for what Washington took up arms against
the mother country, and what, by his example and teachings, he
sought to perpetuate forever, and see the fratricidal hand raised
to destroy the fair fabric he helped to rear, we feel someth