Silence! ground arms! kneel all! caps off!  “Old Blue-Light’s” going to pray.  Strangle the fool that dares to scoff!  Attention! it’s his way.  Appealing from his native sod, “In forma pauperis"[2] to God—­ “Lay bare thine arm, stretch forth thy rod!  Amen!” That’s “’Stonewall’s way.”

[Footnote 2:  In forma pauperis is a Latin legal expression, meaning as a poor man.]

  He’s in the saddle now—­Fall in! 
  Steady! the whole brigade! 
  Hill’s[3] at the ford, cut off—­we’ll win
  His way out, ball and blade! 
  What matter if our shoes are worn? 
  What matter if our feet are torn? 
  “Quick-step! we’re with him before dawn!”
  That’s “‘Stonewall’ Jackson’s way.” 
  The sun’s bright lances rout the mists
    Of morning, and, by George! 
  Here’s Longstreet[4] struggling in the lists,
    Hemmed in an ugly gorge. 
  Pope[5] and his Yankees, whipped before,—­
  “Bay’nets and grape!” hear “Stonewall” roar;
  “Charge, Stuart![6] Pay off Ashby’s[7] score!”
    In “‘Stonewall’ Jackson’s way.”

[Footnote 3:  Ambrose P. Hill was a prominent Confederate general.]

[Footnote 4:  James Longstreet was one of the most distinguished of the Confederate generals.]

[Footnote 5:  John Pope, the Federal general, was badly defeated by Jackson and Robert E. Lee in the second battle of Bull Run, August 29 and 30, 1862.]

[Footnote 6:  James E. B. Stuart, a cavalry leader in the Confederate army, took a prominent part in the second battle of Bull Run, and was with Jackson in other engagements.]

[Footnote 7:  Turner Ashby, a Confederate general, had greatly aided Jackson by covering the latter’s retreat before General Banks.  He was killed in a skirmish in June, 1862.]

Ah! maiden, wait and watch and yearn
    For news of “Stonewall’s” band! 
  Ah! widow, read with eyes that burn
    That ring upon thy hand. 
  Ah! wife, sew on, pray on, hope on! 
  Thy life shall not be all forlorn;
  The foe had better ne’er been born
    That gets in “‘Stonewall’s’ way.”

BARON MUNCHAUSEN

INTRODUCTION

Collected in a book called The Travels of Baron Munchausen is a series of the most extravagant stories imaginable.  No one can possibly believe them to be true, and yet when we are reading them they do not appear so absurdly ridiculous as they seem afterward when we think of them.  The book is said to have been written by a German named Rudolph Erich Raspe, but we cannot be sure of it, as there are no proofs.  It is said, too, that there was a German officer, a Baron Hieronymous Karl Friedrich Munchausen who lived in the early part of the eighteenth century and who told such marvelous stories that he was very popular among his fellow officers and that