n those who have lost all their glow
and gilding in the "baptism of fire," and acquired that sacred squalor
springing from active and dangerous service? The faded, coat and cap and
the dingy accoutrements are badges of honor, worth a thousand of those
new, bright, untried, and incapable of telling or suggesting any heroic
story. And if the ranks of a regiment of such men are thin, there is a
glorious shadow standing in every vacant place once filled by a gallant
soldier; and a voice rings out which gives the same reply to the inquiry
after the absent ones, that was so long given in the armies of
Napoleon's time to the roll-call which pronounced the name of La Tour
d'Auvergne, the "First Soldier of France"--"dead on the field of honor!"
Think of it, lady of the agricultural and ornithological bonnet and the
irreproachable silks, when the next time in a city railroad car two
"soldiers" sit down beside you, and one is a spruce, natty-whiskered,
good-looking member of a pet regiment of the N.G.S.N.Y. or the N.Y.S.M.,
going down to an evening drill and a supper of oysters after it, and the
other a hard-featured and weather-beaten discharged soldier from our
Southern battle-fields, lame or otherwise, in faded uniform and a shirt
not too suggestive of plentiful washerwomen,--think of this, and if you
smile bewitchingly upon the one, as is your nature, when he apologizes
for accidentally creasing your dress,--do not father up your robes with
too much contempt, from contact with the stained garments of the other,
who has outraged your _amor propre_ by taking a place beside you; for
though you may be merely shunning contact with a vulgar ruffian or a
coward who has deserted his colors in the hour of need--you _may_ be
insulting a _hero_.

Outlying pickets had of course been thrown out from General Porter's
force, now posted to keep the advancing rebels at bay until the still
immense trains of stores and ammunition could be conveyed to Harrison's
Landing, and the siege-guns and field-batteries placed in position at
Malvern Hill and other points guarding the new base. McClellan had
evidently calculated upon making the last and effectual stand at Malvern
Hill, and the rebels had quite as evidently calculated upon his doing so
if allowed to reach it; and on the issue of the struggle in that
neighborhood was to depend the question whether the Union forces were to
be driven pell-mell into the James River, surrender or hold their own
an