Next to the large number of towns worthy to be included in the volume, perhaps the most striking feature is the fact that nearly every town described has experienced the vicissitudes of war. No walls of long standing or traces of them may be pointed out to the curious visitor of to-day, but battlefields there are, and in more than one instance stories may be told of long-sustained sieges and heroic defences. The Sunny South ought naturally to be a land of languorous peace, but over no other section have the clouds of war rolled so heavily. Its oldest town, St. Augustine, was born of war. Baltimore and Washington suffered during the War of 1812, and the latter was seriously threatened during the War for the Union. Frederick Town lives in our memories along with Stonewall Jackson and Barbara Fritchie. Before Richmond Lee foiled the troops of McClellan, and the gallant capital, after four years filled with high hopes and reckless gayety and solemn mourning, surrendered when the same undaunted Lee had but a few thousand starving veterans to oppose to the splendid and puissant hosts of Grant. The ghosts of long-dead cavaliers must have shivered when the streets of Williamsburg echoed to the tramp of soldiers from Puritan New England. The name of Wilmington brings to mind the daring exploits of the blockade-runners; that of Charleston recalls the heroic defence of Fort Moultrie, the occupation by the British, the threatened bloodshed of the Nullification crisis, the capture of Sumter and the magnificent resistance offered the Federal arms throughout the Civil War. Like Charleston, Savannah can tell of encounters with Spaniards and British undergone gloriously by her sons, although she doubtless does not yet relish having been Sherman’s Christmas gift to the nation. Mobile and New Orleans are forever associated with the illustrious name of Farragut, and the latter can boast of being the scene of the most splendid victory in our annals, that won by Jackson and his backwoodsmen over the picked troops of Wellington. As for the great siege of Vicksburg that set the seal upon Grant’s fame, or for the battle of Nashville that gave almost equal renown to Thomas, men will not forget them even when Tolstoy’s dreams of universal peace have become a blessed reality.