before the pinching time. One lad in particular I recollect to have overtaken on foot and unarmed, pressing forward to the army; and, upon my inquiring after his horse and arms, he said, with the utmost simplicity, "I have neither, sir, but expect the old general will let me fight upon my own hook with stones until one of our boys is killed, and then I can get his." I asked him if he was good at throwing stones. "I am pretty good when I get close enough, sir," was [47] his modest answer. I need hardly add that he proved himself a soldier.

On the contrary, those whom I have observed with the most bloody mottoes painted upon their caps were the last to prove them true; and I do not recollect of seeing one with a "Liberty or death" motto who did not take the liberty of returning home a little too soon. One of these Republicans wore upon his hat, in large capitals, "Patriæ infelici fidelis," and he was "faithful enough to his unhappy country" to eat his full share of beef until he got sight of the enemy, but then returned home in disgust without fighting him.

This week upon the Medina was a week of anxious expectation. The "artillery was coming up," General Woll was within five days' march, the rivers low, and no impediment between us; and we believed that the last of the timid had gone home. Victory already, in the imaginations of many, had perched upon our standard; fat beef and venison hams were in the greatest profusion, and the leather breeches-making went on cheerily. Indeed, such was the contempt in which General Woll's division was held, that it looked more like a preparation for a tournament in which every man was required to be clad in deer-hides.

At the first meeting of citizen soldiers in camp, the reader must not expect to find that things are done as in a regular army. In a regular army, drilled per book, there is a mathematical monotony in [48] all that you see, hear, or do. There the "morning reveillé" rouses you from your slumbers with that "same old beat," and there the orderly sergeants call the rolls with the "same old call." Not so in the commencement of a Texas campaign. Here the orderly sergeants are no small characters; and, at the same time that they make their men do their duty, they are ready to fight for their respective companies, will always squabble for good rations, and will see that their particular companies do no more than their due proportion of general camp-duty. Here the "crack of day" is the signal for true genius. Here the orderly sergeants are all equally busy as those in a regular army, and arrive at the same end, if not in such quick time, yet in good time. Here we have been greatly interested in the "roll-calls." Here we have seen a good-tempered farmer, in the first exercise of this important of office, badly puzzled at the tardiness of his men. In his first administration, we have heard him, in his slow, easy, good-natured tone, saying, "Do, men, for God's sake, turn out here! What, in the name of Charity, is the matter with you all?" when he was promptly answered in the same long tone by some young saucebox, "Why, Uncle Bill, what makes you in such a hurry this morning?" Then one of Uncle