y
of a little humanity displayed in mitigating somewhat the horrors
of war had sufficed to obliterate in those few years the recollection
of a bitter sectional enmity; while, on the other hand, a record
of some faithful service far enough from their eyes to enable them
to see it without the aid of a microscope, and the cooler judgment
of a few years of peace, had so far obscured the partizan contests
of a period of war that none were more cordial friends in 1869 than
those who had seemed bitterest enemies six years before. Human
nature is not half so bad as it sometimes pretends to be. As a
rule, it would be pretty good all the time if men could only keep
cool. Among all the enjoyments of that season in St. Louis, that
which left the deepest impression on my memory, as has always been
the case with me, was the sport at Hat Island, under the management
of that most genial of companions, Ben Stickney. We hunted with
hounds before breakfast every morning, and shot water-fowl from
breakfast till supper. What was done after supper has never been
told. What conclusive evidence of the "reversionary" tendency in
civilized man to a humbler state! He never feels so happy as when
he throws off a large part of his civilization and reverts to the
life of a semi-savage. The only thing that saves him from total
relapse is the fact that he takes with him those little comforts,
both liquid and solid, which cannot be found in the woods. He thus
keeps up the taste that finally draws him back again to a civilized,
or, more accurately, semi-civilized life. If any sportsman knows
any better reason than that for not living like a savage when in
his hunting-camp, I would like him to give that reason to me!

We returned to Fort Leavenworth in the spring, and expected to make
that our permanent home. Some necessary improvements had been made
in the quarters during the winter, and no one could have desired
a more comfortable residence, more congenial companionship, or more
agreeable occupation than that of guarding and protecting the infant
settlements of industrious but unarmed and confiding people rapidly
spreading far out upon the plains. With my cavalry and carbined
artillery encamped in front, I wanted no other occupation in life
than to ward off the savage and kill off his food until there should
no longer be an Indian frontier in our beautiful country.

FUNERAL OF GENERAL GEORGE H. THOM