A young person some twenty-four years my senior, for whom I had a violent liking, had preceded me "to the warres." I saw his ship sail away, at that exceedingly tender age when a human being is involved in mummy-like cerements, and cannot properly be said to exist at all. In the winter of 1864--he had been away during that long interval--I enlisted and went South to visit him. I had thrived at home through the distended agony of those days. I had a general idea that my cue in life was to fight; and I would smile endearingly over a colored plate of the Battle of Trafalgar, whose smoky glare, and indications of turmoil and slaughter, were supremely to my mind. Red, however, by some process of mistaken zeal, I came to regard as inimical to the party to which, as catechumen, I belonged. I had not then a very copious vocabulary at my command; but I soon indicated my convictions by screeching like a young eagle at the most innocent auction-flag that ever floated out of a Boston door of a sunny morning, or flushing with unmistakable wrath at a casual visitor who bore a trace of that outrageous color in anything worn or carried. It was long, indeed, before I was persuaded to transfer my misguided sentiment to A.D. 1775, and to believe that the neighboring rebel had no especial affinity with the hue in question. Prior to my memorable journey to Virginia, I had spent a few months in camp the year before. A slight epidemic ran the rounds of the tents, and took in ours. The only recollection which survives is a vivid one of neighboring trees, and a distant hill, visible as I lay facing the narrow door; a view which included the ever-flitting figure of the sentinel, his steady, silent tread, musket on shoulder, and the kind rustic face in profile, which turned, ever and anon, smilingly about, like the moon at her merriest. That welcome shadow which fell before him in the broad light was cut down in the ranks at Malvern Hill.
But my earliest real experiences began in '64. Hostilities had been some weeks suspended; yet the headquarters of a Southern regiment lay within gun-shot, and thither my delighted terrors reverted. Was Jeff Davis lurking on the other bank of the stream? Might they creep over by night and fall upon us? If I should be allowed to venture alone into the thicket, would the fiery eyes of the "reb" glare upon me? Please could I settle difficulties with any little boy in the opposing camp? in the admirable Roman fashion, of whose precedent I was yet ignorant.