The Army Mule and Other War Sketches

h betokens superb development of spirituality. The endurance of a hallucination is perhaps greater still. Our civil war closed more than t

man who habitually asserts, who is willing to verify by affidavit, wo

ts. But the man of distorted perspective, who measures the circumference of the universe by the diameter of his own egotism, shrinks fro

ike Miriam or howl like Jeremiah in narrating them. But he will cheerfully spend a week in marching one of his deeds past a given point, and skeptics soon discover that it is cheaper to feed him than to fight him. He may be an ex-major-general, or possibly an ex-teamster. Sometimes he is an ex-corporal, mellow as those autumnal days when the golden glory of the sassaf

owd, bristling with home thrusts that give out a sizzling sound and an odor of roast owl. He is a Chimborazo of noise with an ant-hill of achievement to back it; a miracle of linked hallucinations ludicrously elongated; an extinct incandescent carbon b

on his nose was acquired at a great expenditure of time and money. He comes to the front in his community, sage of the flannel lip and velvet eye, in accordance with a known law that not al

es foamed over their pebbly shores and her rivers gurgled with bloody ebullition remain unwrit, in fear of probing blow-holes in the record of some grand snark in the concatenated order of hoo hoos? Shall posterity be give

n plain narrative or wrathful controversy they have ventured an enormous consumption of time and eternity. Whether their anger be a dynamite shell or a soap-bubble, its vocalization is uniformly terrific. The generals and the majors; the teamsters and the staff; even the drafted men and substitutes, unstable as the he

The speechless toilers of the conflict, half horse, half devil, half donkey, stand high on the list of those who should not be forgo

melodious bray, reminding us that justice remains yet to be done to the instrument which made campaigns successful and battles possible. It is an instrument to which due cre

vindication. Let the man of prejudice disinfect his mind and listen. It is naught, saith the buyer, th

eck in the granitic formations. None of his petrified footprints are discernible in those anteglacial basins where Afric's sunny fountains now sprinkle her shirtless swarms. Hence, although he possibly antedates all living apostles of lady suffrage, he is presumably not a pre-Adamite. Perhaps his first discoverer was "that Anah" who, to

like certain party organizations he has no more ground for pride of descent than he has for hope of posterity. Let us promptly concede the validity of the averment. Argue not with one steeped in kerosene and other fir

beyond" of his species. Besides, he has little of value to bequeath; he is a disinherited prodigal, with champagne tastes and a root beer revenue, digesting his diet of wild oats; his assets would scarcely overbalance those

ms and five kinds of angel cake, was heard to declare that she woul

n war should gnash loud her iron fangs, and shake her crest of bristling bayonets. Vouchsafe unto the male line gratitude for little else. But as for the female line, who knows? Possibly it runs back to "Araby the blest," where horse pedigrees are cherished like a Connecticut coffee pot, until they fade into

not a mere ephemeral product of the county fair season, when alleged acrobats with leaky balloons monopolize the casualty

of the hoariest ancients, in those days when the average human heart could be readily split up for floor tiles. He had been promoted thence to the rank of mail carrier as long ago

il great David's shear-bearers could come up and cut loose the best-beloved, the whole current of Israel's history might have changed, saving vast research to the modern sensational divine working a heresy advertisement for all there is in it. Solomon, next-beloved, might never have reigned; his superf

akable Mule been simply an unperfected modern invention in the rough, his hair not yet dry, his effectiveness and hope of glory would have been greatly lessened. The surviving boasters "ablest to be heard" now on grassy village streets, with two million major-generals, colonels, first sergeants and other soldiers, might never have

ast who goes through the world wearing an air of crushed strawberry resignation on his face and s

e from a chisel that, ignoring down and dimple, cuts thought and carves breath from the marble, without risk of challenge for implied bias. In the absence of stone-cutters, let a cyclopedia furnish from its cold-sto

ent times in many parts of the East, and is much used, also, in most of the countries around the Mediterranean Sea, and in the mountainous parts of South America. Great care is bestowed on the breeding of Mules in Spain and Italy, and

to the sa

ter which fully justified the government in assigning to this useful equine

ning, he was simply tough. As to color, his muzzle was always whitish, as if fresh from a meal-tub, but otherwise he was more various than delectable, sometimes yellow, sometimes dun, sometimes sorrel, but oftenest darkly, deeply, beautifully bay.

ove him; few named him except to praise after a reasonable acquaintance. His air of innocent gravity was sometimes mistaken for stupidity-most inexcusable and fatal error! He could look as imbecile as a rustic fop playing "Glory Hallelujah" on an accordeon. He could look as guileless as the youth who murdered his own father and mother and then begged the judge to have mercy on a poor orphan. He cou

t and speedy circuit of nerve-telephone here manifest, without the intervention of any dilatory central office. His drooping lids were thus but the token of a measureless content, which craved not the mere bric-a-brac

oans, that sent thrills of suicidal delirium through all the encircling camps. No further seek his general merits to disclose. They developed constantly on the sensitive plate of our regard, and we have waited long for somebody to take off a blue-print of his ground plan

s biped, man, after being inspected on the hoof, was obliged to gradua

an aroused people; the fierce uprising; the keen razor-edge of fervor. Then the enrolling and drilling and marching and evoluting in the moonlit squares and streets; the nocturnal visitations, with fife and drum, to the verandas of oratorical patriots for a "night-cap" of glowing speech, alt

dare and die, hurled back deathless daring and defiance. Their eyes, fixed on their idealized leaders, shining like white statues amid the black

hourly refreshed by a contemplation of the tangible Testament and pin-cushion. With them went the toe-ache of tight boots, earthly, sensual, devilish, and a flushed consciousness, even when drilling in the awkward squad, th

m the appetite of a Chippewa maiden clad in cavalry trowsers and a tentfly; also an inherited capacity to stand indefinitely on one foot and kick vehemently with all the others. He was reliable as

did not attend crowded war meetings in country school-houses and waste his rhetoric on the fetid air. It may fairly be surmised, however, that he knew better than any northern croaker the futility of trying to repossess our surrendered fortresses with writs of replevin; knew better than any southern fire-eat

stors. He wheeled into line useful, ubiquitous, proud as a deceased Connemarran with a solid silver door-plate on his pearl-plush casket, blazoning his immortal virtues-also quite numerous. A total

n for conjuring ecstatic assemblages. His name pronounced, the sensation seekers gathered, as in the manipulation of complicated governmental machinery congress touches the button, and the department clerks do the rest, subject to approval of the salary an

testamentary dispositions in advance, and provide abundant bandages and plasters, with blank coupons or certified checks attached to provide for extra dividends. One out-thrust of his right front foot has

e, he darts through an ambulance or climbs a tree without compunction. But he seldom gets loose. When his first wild anger has been measurably spent and the mercury in him has gone down to the bulb, five or six

h his heels. With the final linking together of the detached tackle into one engirdling gearage, the first step in his humiliation is completed, and the pantings of his suppressed fury mingle with the chokings of his self-contempt. From that hour he is a changed Mule. Man delights him not, nor small boys either. Straps leave invisible, indelible marks of servitude, as a blow from a parent leaves a scar on the soul of

-martyrs wait to endure with him the culminating indignity. The Mule units are now to be transmuted into a Mul

one dusty burial blent. Entangled, prostrate, writhing like a coil of rattlesnakes; each eager nose, and active heel, and tufted tail, points all ways at once, like a mariner's needle in a thunder-storm. In this tumbling, tearing glomer a

is always brought forth by a C?sarian operation from anarchy. So from this sour animal effervescence of insurrection miraculously unravels at last, scathless and satisfied, a melancholy sextette of curbed and

with a rope around his lower lip rasping it to rawness, but without any very searching inquiries as to

the name of the Union and emancipation, but must first be introduced to his commander-and so must you, my beloved. Ye w

He was a product of heterogeneous aggregation and the survival of misfits. His status was fixed in earliest infancy; when he was vaccinated, the doctor is suspected of having thrown away the child and saved the virus capsule. He p

and he had always been disposed to shed perspiration with extreme diffidence. He was mostly red-headed. He had been addicted to excess of raw spirits, tobacco and other abominations-loving these, his enemies, with a fine, magnanimous, scriptural, discrimination. He may be relied on to fill a drunkard's grave some day, probably without even asking the drunkard's permission; such are his knavish proclivities. His eye was aglare with hate, every glance a stab. His occasional smile ran through all the gamut of grins, from the smirk of conceit to the simper of toadyism. He had a torpid liver and was no

s a slimy ooze of the gutter, with its wailing stench. His breath was the whiff of loose-corked, all-night gin shops, stale and stifling. His typical caress to the Mule was a blow on the bone of the nose with a neck yoke that settled the animal on his haunches. With a heart

e may have been an unattractive, non-magnetic quadruped, a ragged hammerhead, with a wall eye and an amputated ear; with yellow, irregular teeth and a surplus of lip. But his redeeming features were sure to be disclosed

ight be expected the direful finale. But in this zigzag of military contradictions things are reversed. The man and the beast have changed places. The semi-seraph and brevet horse have been subjected to a mysterious tra

tores an equilibrium of virtue lost through his depraved and dissolute driver. The virtues of the Mule atone for the vices of the man. He raises the average of m

lose of the war for the suppression of the rebellion-if, indeed, it has yet dawned. The platform of the Mule millennial: Six quarts of oats at a feed; a blanket; two curry-combs of assort

ld be given to war-memoirs; what side-gleams would be thrown on historic events; what showers and floods of reinforcement would be added to the gurgling, vasty streams of patriotic reminiscence. He had his opinions on the conduct of the war, and on the

ejeuner of decayed salmon whose aroma is indisputable and widely permeative. Arizona, latitude some hundreds of feet below the sea level, offers a splendid climate in exceptionally large quantities, wher

cheerfully pump you full of sententious legendary lore while you wait. In Rhode Island, walk under the mistletoe with a young lady and tradition will do the rest. In Chicago, hand an attractive widow out of a cable car, and gossips will supply all necessary additiona

rsally associated with solemnity of visage that the terms become substantially interconvertible, like the principles of a polished politician. When the Army Mule lowers his head and lifts his eyebrows and

anslated from his equi-asinine vernacular, and rendered into the anglo-effervescent jargon of the bivouac, would rattle like a regimental long-roll and yield aroma rivaling the effluvium of a lime-kiln. His reprobate tormentor, with no perceptible circulation of blood above the ears, presents multiplied testimonials of having long been habitually fed on aqua-fortis, hell-broth and ratsbane. Yet he reveals a cruel coldness that would

my Mule that there are lower depths. Somewhere between the Indian's level and that bottomless perdition, where the arches of Tophet redden in the glow of its quenchless flame, there is a midway plaisance tableland, reserved transcendent in its horrors for the ruminating promenades of the teamster terrific. Somewhat lower than the Indian; a little higher than satan and his imps-not much-there is the plane of character assigned with ghoulish gladness to the hare-lipped caliph of the wagon train, by one best fitted, through intimate, hourly ass

childhood was punctuated with copious threats that the goblins of desperation would get him if he didn't watch out. The events of his pseudo war experience fully verified this dreadful p

often in danger of falsifying her accounts by crediting to her personality the charms of her cash. But the cashless, unsusceptible Mule stands in no per

in the seat of the scornful hard by. He was unartistic as a Montana hurricane kite-an iron shutter with a tail made of log-chains. He was unsymmetric as a court dwarf with scythe-snath spine and a dome on his s

easy victor in the suit Neigh versus Bray. To him might come sweet visions of promotion in the life that is and artistic apotheosis in a glad hereafter. But to the speechless, unapproachable Mule, wi

upon his shoulder was the only badge of honor permitted to the Army Mule, save when the whip-lash had cut out a slice of his skin as a souvenir. But even this significant lettering was often so inexpertly executed as to serve no decorative purpose whatever. It was infinitely less effect

, sharktoothed, and knobby with protruding bones from throat-latch to crupper, could draw heavier loads than a round robust Norman-Percheron horse weighing a ton, remains to this day unknown, unguessable. Invidious comparison is gross violation of consanguinity equal to marrying one's widow's sister. The checked, banged and bitted high steppers of Fairmount park, dear to the heart of placid quakers because their nerves can endure the strain of "Curfew Shall Not Toll Tonight," or equivalent atrocities, will not be in

of five (5) miles per stanza, hangs to the canvas in a posture unnatural as that of some artillery steed swung by the breeching from a tree after a caisson explosion. The war-horse has been sufficiently pictured and carved. But he still lacks his literary limner. Almost the sole description

and has a gable end to which his tail is attached. His eyes are two pearls set in mahogany, and before he lost his sight were said to be brilliant." And more to the same effec

aining or pedigree? Are nice distinctions of gait, between the singlefoot trot and the rack, which are manifestly matters of original brain power and painful culture, modified of course by heredity, to be studiously ignored? In short, is the horse to be thus dismissed into obliquity, so to speak? If so, what conclusions will p

s. We have essays galore on the immorality of trotting and the iniquity of pools. We have treatises enough on overhead check reins and the cruelty of the cable slot. But this is a condition, not a theory, which now reproaches us. Soon it will be too late. If the agitation started here shall finally result in loosening some corset strings of prejudice and fixing the neglected, necessary

The piebald circus favorite shall no longer monopolize the fondness of our rising youth. The praiseworthy Mule, hot and foamy

xion and a solitaire front tooth cut bias, is in the saddle; all being thus in readiness the war can now begin. If the speechless miserable Mule shall unfortunately escape sorosis of the heart

h which a young woman receives her first information that there are spring styles in trousers as well as in gowns. For him no primrose paths of

He brings up the rear of the most gigantic and jubilant salvation army since salvation was revealed, but he is not conceited. He is full of suppressed merit as an egg is of omelet, yet bashful as the kerchiefless caller who toys with the doily in nervous embarrassment while the seconds swell

r in the early thirties. Likewise commissary whisky, vintage of lye, lime and fusel; decanted of all disgusts; confected for the scum of slums. But none of these

with countenance severe as that of the sterilized milk speculator whose investment has soured, but heart warm as the modest, efficacious fritter, dear to the breakfast relish of Hoosier schoolboys when the frost is on the melon and the fodder's in the stalk. He starts out in the morning eager as if something of great value were ha

th four dice, and the usual rustic system of studying games of hazard has similar elements of weakness; but there is no weakness about the character of the seasoned, unchangeable Mule. If a glossary of battles could be transcribed from the quartermasters' reports of "actions" where Mules were lost, it would make a fearful and wonderful record. But no premonitions of battle trouble him now. With a good hearty r

on of combing his fetlocks in golden stubble-fit function for his underrated merits. No nightmares come hurling cold hailstones at his sinless head or murdering "Sweet Marie" in Z minor around his protesting ears. So h

ope's cannon at a hold-the-fort-for-I-am-coming velocity of six miles a day. We may furthermore safely claim for him devotion at least equal to that displayed by another major-general, coincidently neg

a domestic cyclone cellar. Human nature is not perpetually keyed up to the Marco Bozarris pitch. Marvel not then that the astute Lincoln, when informed that a general and forty Mules had been captured by the enemy, put on that far-away, lodge-of-sorrow look and plai

tures; winking slyly to himself in the excess of his cunning, all unaware of the multiplex miseries stored away for him in the immediate future. The price was generally satisfactory, for the service sighed for him. But the Mule did not receive the money. Far from it! A part of it went to his loyal owner, so called. We all knew him. He was suave as a Scot

urchase price, as was currently suspected, went into the pockets of the purchasing quartermaster, clothed in white samite, mystic, plunderful-popular only within restricted areas. None of

he conscience twinges one or more of us here present, it is perhaps not yet too late to reform. Nearly a thousand men, mostly teamsters, buglers and hospital stewarts, toothless but terrible, have been pensioned since the war for lameness caused by the kick of a Mule's hoof

o splice the splints. These are facts which no profuseness of classic allusion to pearly brooks and flowery meads can obscure, when the sour cream of his experience curdles in his soul. In gushing eras of reconciliatio

this star-eyed hero an elegant gentleman as well as an orthodox believer-then immediately applied for a patent on her discovery. (Some men, like happy dreams, are too good to be true). Surely the day of jubilee had come. But even at tha

aple syrup through the family heirloom blanket for the St. Louis market in the forests of southern Iowa, has almost ceased to be a picturesque, typical feature of our civilization. But the war claimant still lingers, multiplying his lost Mules periodically, as t

e adept that he resolves to embark in that line of business himself. Loyalty and treason were largely matters of education and environment. Even the rival little liver pills are quite the same in their essential, fundamental ingredients;

ce in the solitudes of Mexico; the chattels were joint and several assets, like a plug of tobacco in the hands of a threshing crew. In war the defeated faction must accept the quartermaster's brand, "Inspected and Condemned," without a murmur, even as in polit

ry stock of a new faith and dig a few grubs out of the roots. The boy with a big apple in his mouth, that he can neither spit out nor chew nor swallow, is a d

George H. Thomas when he said: "The fate of an army sometimes depends on a linch-pin." Poetry without a motif is held by experts to be deficient in verve; an army without a train long as the exordium of

h a high, white canvas cover. Thirteen wagons were, during the first two years of the war, allotted to a regiment of infantry; six to a battery of artillery. Such campaigning emulated the luxuriousness of a hundred-acre corn-field where

lorid, inductive teamster, with a hare-lip, is pondering profoundly the subjectiveness of dinnerlessness. He is a hectic, hungry, hairy man, with whiskers on his wrists; in addition he is deliberate. He repairs the damage very deliberately. He refres

dictate of wisdom to leave a wild-eyed cannibal in undisturbed possession of his warpath; equally so to be very sparing of sneers at anoth

istle with tent-poles, trail tangled tent ropes far behind, and exude knapsacks, haversacks, canteens, drums and drum majors at every pore. They are festooned around and beneath with clinging mess pans, pendulous camp kettles, and the like differentiation of iron-mongery. If the weather i

a generous salary as walking delegate. But when rains descend and floods come, the scenery shifts; wagons, muleteers and quadrupeds are indiscriminately plunged into dilu

He gathers in all its multiplex horrors, computed on the Utah plural family plan. He would win a Columbian Exposition medal for the most picturesque collection of miseries-picturesq

erges from the mire and clay, wit

ideous newspaper. No man can fully appreciate the faithfulness of our devoted animal co-workers until he sees a crucial test applied. The quenchless, mar

f, over the muddy flat, across the cold stream, up the steep bank-lashed, lathered and spurred. With a whisk of his tail that scatters bullets of mud he springs to the tremendous task. His body is squat to the earth at times, but his ears always point starward. Every muscl

ocation. Rest is alleged to be the only unfailing antidote to Dr. Bright's widely advertised kidney complaint. Camp is recreation in army service as courting is the play spell of the soul. T

nt, purely platonic schottische. Consequently no blame can justly attach to the worn and worried Mule for standing ever in readiness to fall in with propositions for honorable repose. Beautiful are his anticipat

ct mathematical principles of animal economy. The court records it and the law doth give it. Thrice happy is the beast that gets it; happy, but rarer than Indians with side whiskers and ideality. Straw, stalks, tent pins and cracker boxe

in. But it came to naught; possibly for lack of leadership. There was no relief for the oppressed, defrauded Mule. No satiating food for him, savory as Lyonaise potato softly tinctured with onion. No lo

own eating he preferred gravy. This was the cranberry tart retort of the illustrious journalist, with a tough undercrust of misconception, it is true. The condiments for the Army Mule's camp banquet were not of

ell-flavored morsels are too uncertain for standard sustenance. For shockingly protracted periods, he stands unfed, neglected, receiving all suggestions with a squeal and a kick, while the zephyrs disinfect his fur. Pending which, stark, grim skeletons of all the barked and branchless trees within stretch of his tether attest the final result of an a

anged bakers decorating the street corners next morning. But in camp there is no concentrated public opinion sufficiently intense to mete out due retribution to the profligate castigator of the fodderless, thirsty Mule. He sleeps on ample bedding of good sweet hay, and has large sto

worthless as second-hand champagne corks. The jocularities referred to have no interest to the solemn, imperturbable Mule save when he is an object of their malevolence. Then they are more interesting than enjoyable

are on the passé social code of roller rinks, has caused much of the reputation for waspy temper which now attaches to him with the tenacity of a bachelor girl to the state of single blissfulness.

mule should be well buttressed with sound accident policies. Beware the irritated quadruped! Look not into the red mouth of a wild Numidian lion; touch not the royal Bengal

eck, while the battalions of wrath are debouching from all quarters into his hoof. Then the eruption breaks out with torpedo suddenness and with an e

, with its lemonade, its orations, and its other things that lull to peaceful slumber. Halcyon to the Army Mule are monotonous days in camp, when they bring surcease of torment as well as toil; red-lettered if therewithal be brought, by rare concatenation, such plethora of long forage as drowns vicissitude in bright beatitude

avenue dog who has smelled some chance passer-by two or three grades below par. His future may be uncertain as a Spaniard's veracity or a Frenchman's paternity; but

r on the make, as of old. But the placid, benevolent Mule never takes up arms against either party-our quartermaster's returns of uncounted thousands "lost in action" to the contrary notwithstanding. It even seems dif

esurrection of the body. So the peaceful nature of the Mule is fatal to any accumulation of reputation bubbles, where bayonets bristle and saltpeter burns. Were he ten times the tin-clad

sive state of concentration. But when the red and riotous fume of the bomb-throwers' breath permeated the haymarket like a pestil

le. Even the reproachful Confederate smokehouse could not shake its gory padlock at the stainless, unimpeachable Mule-although he carried a jimmy equal to most emergencies, he could, as a rule, readily establish an alibi. When fodder is really in the shock, and frost is ready to be cleft from pumpkins with a snow-plow, then such free

xcellent subjects for the romantic young woman who yearns for a lovely debauchee to reform. Here congregate cooks, commissaries and sutlers-this last with a sage-brush tinge of disappointment in his aspect, and a Jenness-Miller cut of trousers on his limbs. Here recreate skulkers who simulate heroes, and sneaks in the garbage of soldiers, all cumberers of the ground, like a prophet gone to seed in his own country

the swear tank for a thought distillery in the higher realms of journalism is even worse, if possible. But when a Mule dam breaks, the thundering reverberation of its tumultuous hoofs is a resonant forecast of pandemonium rampant. Vain and futile then all ardent aspiration for su

age. It was a chaotic conglomeration of convulsive uproar, sufficient to whirl down any hope of glory with a sickening slump. The gentleman from out of town, who, in spite of conspicuous warning, blows out the gas, makes his exit from sublunary strife in enviable quietude.

n angle of forty-five degrees toward perdition, would have admitted the soft impeachment, and pursued his flight, lashing, blaspheming. He may have been, at home, as consistent a Baptist as ever yoked a steer, but for this occasion all rules are suspended by unanimous consent, and

the diabolical, he emulated the standards of the officer and the gentleman. We can afford to mix a little sentiment with our matter of fact. We can afford to drop a tear

down the rebellion. The dancing diplomat, with his twisted comprehensions and his addled complacencies may not appreciate it. Such an one, having never associated with the speechless, unspeakable Mule, nor, indeed, had any legitimate business transactions with him, may p

il a fatigue squad to police his ears. The worthy chaplain, fresh from green pastures of civil life, where he fed the

ed destiny. You might tie his tail like a pretzel, or pound his bray in a mortar, yet would not his serenity depart from him. The proneness of his voice apparatus to go off at half cock unfitted him for crooked works of strategy-he could never be relied on

toms of Coxey and Altgeld, he had, nevertheless too much animal self-respect to ever incur censure for getting human

of the cactus order, generally speaking. He chooses grudges with rare discrimination; it is always safe to suspect the man that a Mule hates. Patient in toil; silent in suffering; cogent and cautious as the rule in Shelly's case; serene amid direst confusion and alarm; heedless of ancien

g, he accepted the indignity, went to grass with the recoil, and rose for the next inning, unruffled as

tza. In these peaceful days, Lincoln's speech at Gettysburg, translated into the jingling speech of Chinamen, and even into the jabbering Japanese, which rivals the contortions of the kinetoscope, opens a new evangel to their narcotic, Oriental souls. Sherman's marv

n the matter of beer, the foreigner unquestionably pays the tax, or most of it, yet as between natives, white-colored may lose an

sour apple tree that failed to yield its promised harvest; hopeless as the perpetual revolutions of a bob-tailed dog chasing the vacant space where the tail should be; tasteless as fried smelts; thankless as opening a mint sauce to the free coinage of lamb. The chappie fellows who flutter

Gettysburg, and then marched triumphantly with Grant into conquered Vicksburg next day. But the Army Mule did both, and more! He went out with the mob of pinfe

e held himself in commendable subjection while incipient legions evolved themselves out of chaos. He passed on, beaten with many stripes, to that multitudinous aggregation called an army, where human atoms, swarming and wriggling to the music of brass bands, like agile mites in a nugg

ack meadow enameled with trap rock, he plodded rigidly on. Anhungered and athirst, with no credit at the sutler's, on he plodded, through hot, white clouds of drastic turnpike dust, or red and hideous depths of gummy mud, dragging incredible burdens of those in

lt-fretted haunches and his bloody nostrils placarded his agony, the Army Mule accepted the wideopen poli

ul reminiscences, crowded with apparitions of the maligned, mellifluous Mule. Leashed and shackled, foodless in the drizzly, sleety camp, when our quarrel

ctions, the pattering skirmish shots of distant action, he at length became a veritable veteran. Like a thrice-rejected suitor finally made happy, he had been well shaken before taken. And now, a warrior bold, seasoned to war's alarms, he could, upon occasion, thirst or seem to thirst for

aring on knightly shoulder a proud insignia of his service, the indellible brand of honor, which no humility of avocation could degrade nor purse-proud aristocracy of money bags, the basest known on earth, contemn with impunity. And when the end c

isrespect t

stallization of the nation's life, and the embodiment of her glory, until fighting beneath it is patriotism, dying for it is immortality, and treachery to it is the blackest of crimes. Our flag of beauty and renown, descending to us from stainless sires by a shining pathway, pure as that down which the hol

erness and Appomatox-these and five hundred more. How the deathless names gild the resplendent folds of the proud ensign of liberty! Flag of the

ood of the brave

the altars of

ar-fires, but n

ad ribbons of

icious echoes of those days which float booming across the ocean of memory will sometimes come, whether we greet it

SU