Fannie A. Beers, Memories: a record of personal exeperience and adventure during four years of war.

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[104] Orleans. Citizens never tire of viewing the beautiful uniform and the martial step of the Continental Guards. And who can look upon Captain Pierce, bearing his trusty sword, keeping step equally well, whether he wears a finely-formed cork leg or stumps along on his favorite wooden one,—his bearing as proud as the proudest, his heroic soul looking gloriously forth from its undimmed windows,—and fail to remember proudly the young lieutenant who tell under the enemy's gun at Chickamauga? Or who can listen unmoved to the music of the cannon which so often woke the morning echoes upon the bloodiest battle-field of the war? A parade of the Washington Artillery is, indeed, a glorious and inspiriting sight. Here they come, gayly caparisoned, perfect in every detail of military equipment, led by elegant officers who may well ride proudly, for each is a true soldier and a hero. Scarcely less distinguished, save for the plainer uniform, are the rank and file that follow. Can these be the same men whom history delights to honor,—the heroes of a hundred battlefields,—both in the army of Virginia and Tennessee, who, stripped to the waist, blackened with powder and smoke, bloody with streaming wounds, still stood to their guns, and, in answer to the enemy, thundered forth their defiant motto, ‘Come and take us!’ And now—who more peaceful, who more publicspir-ited, who more kind in word and deed? Of the Virginia detachment I knew little except their splendid record. From the fifth company I frequently received patients during my service with the Army of Tennessee, for, like their comrades of Virginia, they seemed to be in every battle, and in the thick of it. In fact, New Orleans and the whole State of Louisiana, like every city and State in the South, are peopled with veterans and heroes. In comparatively few cases have military