d service in
the Army of the Potomac. The boom of the sunrise gun awoke me on the
morning after my arrival, and I hastened to attend reveille roll-call.
As I descended the steps of the officers' quarters the men of the four
companies composing the garrison were forming into line before their
barracks. Details from the guard, which had just fired the gun and
hoisted the national colors, were returning to the guard-house, and
the officers were hastening to their places.

At the conclusion of the ceremony I turned again towards my quarters,
and noticed two handsome boys, evidently aged about fifteen and
thirteen, dressed in a modification of the infantry uniform of the
army, and wearing corporals' chevrons. They stood near the regimental
adjutant, and seemed to be reporting their presence to him.

At breakfast, the adjutant chancing to sit near me, I asked him who
the youthful soldiers were.

"They are the sons of Lieutenant-Colonel Burton, Corporals Frank and
Henry," he replied. "They hold honorary rank, and are attached to
head-quarters, acting as messengers and performing some light clerical
work."

"How do they happen to be in Santa Fe?"

"Mother recently died in the East, and the colonel had them sent here
in charge of a tutor who is to fit them for college, I believe."

Later, on the same day, being desirous of looking over this ancient
Indian and Mexican town, I was making a pedestrian tour of its
streets, and chanced to be opposite San Miguel School in the eastern
section during the pupils' recess. Half a dozen boys were engaged in
throwing the lasso over the posts of the enclosing fence, when
suddenly from a side street appeared the young corporals whom I had
seen at reveille.

The Mexican boys instantly greeted them with derisive shouts and
jeers. They called them little Gringos and other opprobrious names,
and one young Mexican threw the loop of his lasso over the smaller
corporal's head and jerked him off his feet. His companions laughed
loudly. The older corporal instantly pulled out his knife and cut the
rope. Then the two brothers stood shoulder to shoulder, facing the
crowd, quite ready to defend themselves. The young Mexicans,
gesticulating and shouting, crowded round the two brothers, and blows
appeared imminent.

"Muchachos," suddenly cried a ringing voice from the rear, in Spanish,
"are you not ashamed? A hundred against two!"

A handsome lad forced his way through the crowd, placed himself