dropped in for a friendly call.  Slocum had been in the thick of most of the bitter Virginia battles from the first, and all the world knew that at Gettysburg, by beating back the thrust of the Stonewall division toward the Baltimore pike, he had secured the threatened rear of the army of the Potomac and averted defeat.  This had taken place in the preceding month, and I naturally marvelled that the unpretending, simple man could be that victorious champion, but for the time being we were there plain citizens, and, American fashion, the Major-General and the Corporal shook hands and fraternised on equal terms.  It probably helped me with Slocum that I too had been in danger.  About the time he was defending Culp’s Hill, I had been in the ditch at the foot of the Port Hudson rampart.

While reticent as to his part at Gettysburg, he spoke with feeling of what his corps had been through, and knowing that both Mr. May and I were Massachusetts men took an evident pleasure in commending the regiments from that State.  Of the 2d Massachusetts he spoke with high appreciation; it was an admirable body of men and thoroughly disciplined.  It was always ready; its losses were fearful and he felt that he ought to spare it if he could, but a crisis always came when only the best would answer, and again and again the 2d Massachusetts was thrown in.  Particularly at Gettysburg its services had been great and its sacrifice costly.  He spoke feelingly of the young officers who had been slain and also of humbler men.  Since that time I have stood by the simple stone at the “bloody swale at the foot of Culp’s Hill,” which marked the position held that day by the 2d Massachusetts.  It takes no trained eye to see that it was a point of especial difficulty and importance.  Some of the men of that regiment who fell that day were my own college comrades.  I was glad to know from his lips that the commander thought their work heroic.

One naturally brackets the name of Slocum with that of Howard, secondary figures of course in the great Civil War drama and yet both steadfast and worthy soldiers.  They rose together into places of responsibility during the Peninsular campaign, became commanders of corps about the same time, served side by side at Gettysburg, went together to the West, and finally, one at the head of Sherman’s right wing and the other at the head of the left, made the march to the sea and through the Carolinas.  Neither perhaps was a brilliant soldier.  So far as the records show, Slocum always did his work well, was increasingly trusted to the last, and nowhere made a grave mistake.  In Howard’s case, the rout at Chancellorsville will always detract from his fame; he was, however, on that day new in his place, and the infatuation of Hooker by an evil contagion passed down to his lieutenants.  But he too steadily improved, refusing resolutely to be discouraged by his mistakes and always doing better next time.  Perhaps no one act during the war