The Daily Dispatch: June 5, 1861., [Electronic resource]

The Martial Spirit is fully aroused. It has many outward manifestations, and none more striking than is exhibited by the boys on our streets — we mean those whose years are bounded between nine and sixteen. Every boy you meet is an out and out military man. Marbles, tops and hoops are among the things that were. The boy no longer goes to bed to dream of the fun he will have to-morrow in a game of ‘"ball,"’ or ‘"knock-up-and-span."’--His night visions are made up of juvenile squads in drill!--of youthful companies, battalions, regiments, armies, all on the move to meet a foe. He awakes to buckle on his harmless sword and collect his school-mates into line.

When you meet the boy on the street, he salutes you a la militaire. He affects the jaunty fatigue cap of ‘"our army,"’ wears a stripe down each side of his pants, and detects a martial sound in every noise that falls upon his car. If he looks around the well-filled benches of the school room, it is with the eye of a soldier, and he reckons within himself ‘"what a bully show they'd make if they were all mustered into one company."’

All the dimes he gets are carefully saved to buy a sword. Then he sallies forth. His recruiting office is everywhere, and long lines of little boys are to be found drilling under him upon every street. He ignores with supreme contempt the confectionary, and passes, with a military hauteur, the toy shop, except such as expose in their windows some frail representative article of warfare. He builds, assaults and captures a half dozen Fort Sumters every day, and devises all sorts of schemes to prevent the reinforcement of all sorts of Fort Pickenses. Such are the boys of the present day, and they generally make the right sort of men.