The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 | Page 6

worthy part in the trying scenes through which we are passing; and should the star of our destiny sink to rise no more, may we feel for ourselves and may history preserve our record clear before heaven and earth, and hand down the testimony to our children, that we have done all, perilled and endured all, to perpetuate the priceless heritage of Liberty and Union, unimpaired to our posterity.'
And in this fervid utterance of our warm-hearted Governor, the free choice of a free people, let us consider Illinois as expressing her honest sentiments.

A WINTER IN CAMP.
I was painfully infusing my own 'small Latin and less Greek' into the young Shakspeares of a Western college, when the appointment of a friend to the command of the ----th Iowa regiment opened to me a place upon his staff. Three days afterward, in one of the rough board-shanties of Camp McClellan, I was making preparations for my first dress parade. The less said of the dress of that parade, the better. There was no lack of comfortable clothing, but every man had evidently worn the suit he was most willing to throw away when his Uncle Samuel presented him with a new one; and a regiment of such suits drawn up in line, made but a sorry figure in comparison with the smartly uniformed ----th, which had just left the ground. Their colonel, in the first glory of his sword and shoulder straps, was replaced by a very rough-looking individual, with a shabby slouched hat pushed far back on his head, and a rusty overcoat, open just far enough to show the place where a cravat might have been. It was very plain, as he stood there with his arms folded, thin lips compressed, and gray eyes hardly visible under their shaggy brows, that whether he looked the colonel or not was the last thought likely to trouble him. I fancied that he did, in spite of all, and that he saw a great deal of good stuff in the party-colored rows before him, which he would know how to use when the right moment came: subsequent events proved that I was not mistaken. The regiment had no reason to be ashamed of their rough colonel, even when the two hundred that were left of them laid down their arms late in the afternoon of that bloody Sabbath at Shiloh, on the very spot where the swelling tide of rebels had beaten upon them like a rock all day long.
But these after achievements are no part of my present story. The more striking passages of this great war for freedom will be well and fully told. Victories like Donelson, death-struggles like that on the plains of Shiloh, will take their place in ample proportions on the page of history. As years roll on they will stand out in strong relief, and be the mountain tops which receding posterity will still recognize when all the rest has sunk beneath the horizon. It were well that some record should also be made of the long and dull days and weeks and months that intervened between these stirring incidents: at least that enough should be told of them to remind our children that they existed, and in this as in all other wars, made up the great bulk of its toils. This indeed seems the hardest lesson for every one but soldiers to learn. Few but those who have had actual experience know how small a part fighting plays in war; how little of the soldier's hardships and privations, how little of his dangers even are met upon the battle field. Tame as stories of barrack life must seem when we are thrilling with the great events for which that life furnishes the substratum, it is worth our while, for the sake of this lesson, to give them also their page upon the record, to spread these neutral tints in due proportion upon the broad canvas. It is partly for this reason that I turn back to sketch the trivial and monotonous scenes of a winter in barracks. It is well to remind you, dear young friends, feminine and otherwise, at home, that a great many days and nights of patient labor go to one brilliant battle. When your loudest huzzas and your sweetest smiles are showered on the lucky ones who have achieved great deeds and walked through the red baptism of fire, remember also how much true courage and fortitude have been shown in bearing the daily hardships of the camp, without the excitement of hand-to-hand conflict.
The new uniforms came at last, and all the slang epithets with which our regiment had been received were duly transferred to the newly arrived squads of the next in order. Then we began to speculate on the