Here the fashionable historian has a fine field to work in. In dazzling colors he gilds and paints in profusion. He largely expatiates on the stratagems, the manœuvering, and the master strokes of policy displayed by the commanding General. In matchless grandeur he draws his lines, made conspicuous by gleaming swords and bristling bayonets. He plants his thundering batteries on every eminence within the scope of vision. Now open the scenes of death and carnage. Red flashes, black smoke and leaden hail extend from every spot of falling conflict. Hand to hand, foot to foot, breast to breast. First one and then another of distinguished officers dropping, “covered all over with immortal glory.” Grounds taken and retaken. One wing giving away, another pressing victoriously onward over heaps of the slain. Here stubbornly contested, then riding on the fiery wings of battle overpowering all opposition—producing rout, defeat and dreadful slaughter on every road of retreat. Such animating descriptions animate other armies and other Generals. Not only is the impetuous enthusiasm of the common soldier excited, but also the ardor and emulation of the General himself. The young, the old—all seem to desire more opportunities to occur for the exercise of prowess, as well as for further demonstrations of martial glory. But it is quite possible to conceive how the historian could have produced quite a contrary effect. By degrading all that appertains to warfare, and by holding up to public scorn and indignation the brutal and hellish scenes involved for purposes of rapine, plunder or false notions of honor; by descriptions of this sort war might be held in a very different estimation to what it now is. But is the present course of the historian’s pen altogether erroneous? Perhaps not. The inordinate rapacity and selfishness of human nature must be taken into account. The overpowering propensity for conquest, might against right, must be considered. A nation extremely rich in agricultural productions, in manufacturing commodities, and in everything else pertaining to wealth, yet effeminately weak in spirit and incompetent for physical protection, will stand a poor chance against the trained hordes who prefer plunder and conquest to any other pursuit. So far, then, the historian’s pen is not misapplied in keeping alive and active the bravery and martial spirit of a nation to secure its own against the unscrupulous encroachments of other nations, or against the wild infatuations of parts of the same nation.