ciating the conditions that
surrounded us, he chiefly employed himself in keeping the school
together until hostilities began, if it should really come to that. I
don't know how long the school continued, but I do know that these
particular boys were early on the drill ground, and were being trained
into soldiers. It was difficult for the parents to keep the fourteen and
fifteen-year-old boys at home or in school. I had a brother sixteen
years old who was first of the family to enlist, and then all followed,
one after another, until four of us were in the ranks. There were mature
men and old men, men of heavy responsibilities, who saw farther into
the future than the younger generation. These went about with bowed
heads and talked seriously of what the future might bring. They wisely
discussed constitutional law, State rights, what foreign nations would
have to say about it, the nations that had to have our cotton. "Cotton
was king," they said, and the South owned the king, soul and body.
Questions like these were discussed among the men, but like one of old,
the boy cared for none of these things. In the language of a famous
Union general, his place was to meet the enemy and defeat him. I
remember about this time hearing this toast being offered to the South:

"May her old men make her laws, her young men fight her battles, and her
maidens spin her cotton."

The boy well understood the part he was to play, and he was in his
element, and as happy as a boy could be. I cannot remember just when the
first call was made for troops by the Governor, but I do know, as I have
already stated, that the boys heard the call from a higher source, and
they were coming from mountain and plain, from hillside and valley, from
the shop, and office and school. Well do I recall the joy that welled up
in every boy's breast as one after another of the actors took their
places on the stage. Again I find myself quoting Elizabeth Akers, this
time substituting a word:

"Backward, turn backward, oh time in thy flight,
And make me a BOY again, just for tonight."

Now let us take a peep into the Virginia homes. What were the women
doing? Ah, they were as busy as bees. These boys must be equipped not
only with munitions of war, but each boy must take with him as many home
comforts as could possibly be compressed into a bundle small enough to
be carried. When he was at home it took a good-sized room to hold these
things; now he must put the