impulse the Frenchman, under all that is
left of the first Napoleon, the shadow of a mighty name, will charge
with desperation, but fails in the cool and quiet courage so essential
in seeming forlorn resistance. In what other nation can you combine the
elements of the American volunteer? It may be said that the British
Volunteer Rifle Corps would prove a force of similar character. In many
respects undoubtedly they would; as yet there is no basis of comparison.
Their soldierly attainments have not been tested by the realities of
war.

There was ample food for reflection. On the neighboring hills heavy
details of soldiers were gathering the rebel dead in piles preparatory
to committing them to the trenches, at which details equally heavy,
vigorously plied the pick and spade. Our own dead, with few exceptions,
had already been buried; and the long rows of graves marked by head and
foot boards, placed by the kind hands of comrades, attested but too
sadly how heavily we had peopled the ridges.

While the troops were _en route_, the Commander-in-Chief in his hack and
four, followed by a staff imposing in numbers, passed. The Regulars
cheered vociferously. The applause from the Volunteers was brief,
faint, and a most uncertain sound, and yet many of these same Volunteer
Regiments were rapturous in applause, previous to and during the battle.
Attachment to Commanders so customary among old troops--so desirable in
strengthening the morale of the army--cannot blind the intelligent
soldier to a grave mistake--a mistake that makes individual effort
contemptible. True, a great European Commander has said that soldiers
will become attached to any General; a remark true of the times
perhaps--true of the troops of that day,--but far from being true of
volunteers, who are in the field from what they consider the necessity
of the country, and whose souls are bent upon a speedy, honorable, and
victorious termination of the war.

A glance at the manner in which our Volunteer Regiments are most
frequently formed, will, perhaps, best illustrate this. A town meeting
is called, speeches made appealing to the patriotic, to respond to the
necessities of the country; lists opened and the names of mechanics,
young attorneys, clerks, merchants, farmers' sons, dry-goods-men and
their clerks, and others of different pursuits, follow each other in
strange succession, but with like earnestness of purpose. An intelligent
soldiery gathered in this w