"Oh, the lads are always in fine fettle when they expect a fight," he answered, his own eyes dancing as he swept them over that straight line of backs in his front. "They'll scrap the better for being a bit hungry,--it makes them savage. Beats all, Captain, what foolish notions some of those people on the other side have of us Southerners. They seem to think we are entirely different from themselves; yet I reckon it would puzzle any recruiting officer up yonder to show a finer lot of fighting men than those fellows ahead there. 'Food for powder?' Why, there isn't a lad among them unfit for command."

In spite of the indignation in his tone, his voice had the lazy, Southern drawl, and somehow, as he spoke, I thought of my fair prisoner in the mountains, and of how disdainfully she treated me on the occasion of our first meeting. I sincerely hoped her conception of the Southerner had received partial revision since.

"Well, yes," I answered thoughtfully. "Doubtless those who have never visited the South, and who form their conception of us from Northern newspapers and abolition orators, get hold of our worst characteristics, and judge accordingly. I sometimes feel that the whole trouble between the sections is merely such a misunderstanding on a large scale, and that had we only intermingled more freely, many of our differences would have disappeared. In this we are fully as wrong as those of the other side--narrowness of thought and life has been the secret force behind this war. Partisans upon both sides have ignored the fact that we are all of one blood and one history. But in this respect the tendency of the conflict has been to broaden out the actual participants, and teach them mutual respect. I imagine women are at present more apt to retain this prejudice, women whose loved ones are in arms against us."