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good part run away; so too many of the “volunteers” --miserable fellows bought with money.
None are shot — that is unmerciful — but the Powers that Be will let brave, high-toned men, who scorn to shirk their duty, be torn with canister and swept away with musketry, and that is inevitable.
This morning appeared General Grant with two French officers, who since have taken up their quarters with us and mess with us. They are two artillery officers, the elder a Colonel de Chanal, the other a Captain Guzman, both sent as a commission to observe the progress of the campaign.
The Colonel is a perfect specimen of an old Frenchman, who has spent most of his life in provincial garrisons, in the study of all sorts of things, from antiquities down to rifled projectiles.
He has those extraordinary, nervous legs, which only middle-aged Frenchmen can get, and is full of various anecdotes.
Many years he has lived in Toulouse.
The other is young and little and looks like a black-eyed and much astonished grasshopper.
He is very bright, speaks several languages, and was on the Chinese expedition.
General Grant staid some time in council, and took dinner with us. I was amused at him, for, the day being warm, he began taking off his coat before he got to the tent; and by the time he had said, “How are you, Meade?”
he was in his shirt-sleeves, in which state he remained till dinner-time.
He attempted no foreign conversation with the Gauls, simply observing; “If I could have turned the class the other end to, I should have graduated at West Point, very high in French” !
June 25, 1864
I can only say that I have “sweltered” to-day — that is the word; not only has it been remarkably broiling, but 