July 7, 1864
I paid a visit to Brigadier-General Barlow, who, as the day was.hot, was lying in his tent, neatly attired in his shirt and drawers, and listening to his band, that was playing without.
With a quaint hospitality he besought me to “take off my trousers and make myself at home” ; which I did avail of no further than to sit down.
He said his men were rested and he was ready for another assault!--which, if of real importance, he meant to lead himself; as he “wanted no more trifling.”
His ideas of “trifling,” one may say, are peculiar.
It would be ludicrous to hear a man talk so, who, as De Chanal says, “a la figure d'un gamin de Paris,” did I not know that he is one of the most daring men in the army.
It would be hard to find a general officer to equal him and Joe Hayes — both my classmates and both Massachusetts men. Hayes now commands the Regulars.
He could not have a higher compliment.July 10, 1864
It seems sometimes sort of lonely and hopeless, sitting here in the dust by Petersburg, and hearing nothing except now and then a cannon in the distance.
Sometimes I feel like saying to the Rebels: “You're a brave set of men, as ever were; and honest — the mass of you. Take what territory you have left and your nigs, and go and live with your own delusions.”
But then, if I reflect, of course I see that such things won't do. Instead of being exasperated at the Southerners by fighting against them, I have a great deal more respect for them than ever I had in peace-times.
They appear to much more advantage after the discipline of war than when they had no particular idea of law and order.
Of course I speak only of a certain body, the army of Northern Virginia; of the rest I know nothing.
Also do I 