the degenerate families who eke out a scanty subsistence on some corner
of what was once an extensive family seat, remind one of the old
Colonial aristocracy. Reclamation of the soil, as well as deliverance of
the enslaved, must result from this civil war. Both worth fighting for.
So "Forward, men," "Guide right," as in very truth we are in Divine
Providence guided.

The long-haired, furtive-looking fathers and sons, representatives of
all this ancient nobility, after having given over their old homesteads
to their female or helpless male slaves, and massed their daughters and
wives apparently in every tenth house, were keeping parallel pace with
us on the lower bank of the Rappahannock. It was the inevitable logic of
the law of human progress, declaring America to be in reality the land
of the free, that compelled these misguided, miserable remnants of an
aristocracy, to shiver in rags around November camp-fires. "They are
joined to their idols"--but now that after years of legislative
encroachment upon the rights of suffering humanity, they engage in a
rebellious outbreak against a God-given Government, we will not
let them alone in an idolatry that desolates the fair face of nature
and causes such shameful degeneracy of the human race. Justice! slow,
but still sure and retributive justice! How sublimely grand in her
manifestations! After years of patient endurance of the proud contumely
of South Carolina, New England granite blocks up the harbor of
Charleston--Massachusetts volunteers cook their coffee in the fireplaces
of the aristocratic homesteads of Beaufort, and negroes rally to a
roll-call at Bunker Hill, but as volunteers in a war which insures them
liberty, and not as slaves, as was once vainly prophesied.

* * * * *

"Who commands you?" inquired a long, lean, slightly stooped,
sallow-faced man of about fifty, with eyes that rolled in all directions
but towards the officer he addressed, and long hair thrown back of his
ears in such a way as to make up an appearance that would readily
attract the attention of a police officer.

"I command this Regiment, sir," replied the Colonel, who, at the end of
the day's march, was busied in directing a detail where to pitch the
Head-quarter tents.

"Goin' to stay yer--right in this meadow?" continued the man, in the
half negro dialect common with the whites of the South.

"That is what we purpose doing, sir. Are you the owner?"

"Y-