“I write you, dear Leila, from my tent near Vicksburg, this 5th of July.  The prisoners from Pemberton’s army are passing as I write.  Our men are giving them bread and tobacco, and there is no least sign of enmity or triumph.  I am pretty well worn out, as the few engineers have been worked hard and the constant nearness of death in the trenches within five to one hundred feet of the Rebel lines was a situation to make a man think—­not of course while in immediate danger, but afterwards.  I had some narrow escapes—­we all had.  But, dear Leila, it has been a splendid thing to see how this man Grant, with the expressionless face, struck swiftly one army after another and returned to secure his prey.

“I cannot even now get a leave of absence, and I am beyond words anxious to hear about dear Uncle Jim.  Just a line from him makes me think he was to be with General Meade and in that great battle we won.  A telegram to the Engineers’ Camp, Vicksburg, will relieve me.

“It is unlikely, if we go South, that I shall see you for many a day.  All leaves are, I find, denied.  War—­intense war like this—­seems to me to change men in wonderful ways.  It makes some men bad or reckless or drunkards or hard and cruel; it makes others thoughtful, dutiful and religious.  This is more often the case among the men than you may think it would be.  Certainly it does age a fellow fast.  I seem to have passed many years since I sat with you at West Point and you made me feel how young I was and how little I had seen of life.  It was true, but now I have seen life at its worst and its best.  I have had too the education of battle, the lessons read by thousands of deaths and all the many temptations of camp life.  I believe, and I can say it to you, I am the better for it all, and think less and less of the man who was fool enough to do what with more humility he will surely do once more, if it please God that he come out of this terrible war alive.

“When you see me again, you will at least respect my years, for one lives fast here, and the months seem years and the family Bible a vain record, as I remember that the statement of births comes after the Apocrypha which leaves room for doubt.”—­

Leila smiled.  “How like him,” she murmured.

“I said months.  There are (there were once last week) minutes when one felt an insolent contempt of death, although the bullets were singing by like our brave hornets.  Is that courage?  I used as a boy to wonder how I would feel in danger.  Don’t tell, but on going under fire I shiver, and then am at once in quiet possession of all my capacities, whatever they be worth.  A man drops by my side—­and I am surprised; then another—­and I am sure I won’t be hit.  But I was three weeks ago in my leg!  It made me furious, and I still limp a bit.  It was only a nip—­a spent bullet.  I wanted to get at that anonymous rascal who did it.

“Do wire me, and write fully.