continual change of scene, the never-flagging excitement, the little luxuries of the bivouac, the rough good-fellowship of the march, and the boiling, thrilling excitement of the encounter--all these doubtless have their charms when the machine is put into action; but there is a sad reverse to the picture, and those who read with the military enthusiasm of ignorance such captivating accounts of brilliant strategy and daring heroism, should recollect that the same Gazette which makes captains and colonels, makes also widows and orphans; that eyes are gushing and hearts breaking over those very lines that bid the uninterested peruser thrill with warlike ardour and half-envious pride in the deeds of arms of his countrymen. The greatest hero of the age has recorded his opinion of those scenes in which he reaped his own immortal laurels, when he said, “he prayed God he might never again see so frightful a calamity as a national war;” and his opinion has been often quoted, to the effect that a battle won was the next most horrible sight to a battle lost. Far and wide spreads the crop of misery that springs from that iron shower. Its effects are not confined to wasted fields and blackened houses, and devoted ranks stretched where they fell in all the ghastly distortions of violent death. Far, far away, in happy homes and peaceful families, women and children must wail and pine in vain for him whom they will never see again on earth; and the ounce of lead that carries death into that loyal, kind heart, scatters misery and grief, and penury, perhaps, and ruin, over the gentle dependents here at home in England, that have none to trust to, none to care for them, save him who lies cold and stiff upon the field of glory. Glory! when will men learn the right meaning of the word?