tack, salt junk, and the hope of a Confederate States bond apiece for bounty, or free loot in the treasuries of Florida, Mississippi, and Arkansas, after the war. How carefully from that day we watched the rise and fall of United States stocks! If they should go low among the nineties, we felt that our eleven dollars per mensem would be imperilled.
We stayed in our palace for a week or so after April 26th, the day of the oath. That was the most original part of our duty thus far. New York never had so unanimous a deputation on the floor of the Representatives Chamber before, and never a more patriotic one. Take care. Gentlemen Members of Congress! look to your words and your acts honestly and wisely in future! don’t palter with Liberty again! it is not well that soldiers should get into the habit of thinking they are always to unravel the snarls and cut the knots twisted and tied by clumsy or crafty fingers. The traitor States already need the main de fer, — yes, and without the gant de velours. Let us beware, and keep ourselves worthy of the boon of self-government, man by man! I do not wish to hear, “Order arms!” and “Charge bayonets!” in the Capitol. But this present defence of Free Speech and Free Thought ends, let us hope, that danger forever.
When we had been ten days in our showy barracks we began to quarrel with luxury. What had private soldiers to do with the desks of lawgivers?
