Real _ability_ to achieve, and moral worth, are never boastful and impatient to astonish the people. Even the great rebel General Lee, in a letter recently published, urges the same unassuming, calm performance of present duty upon his son: quoting as an illustration the “old Puritan,” who in the early period of our legislation, when the day suddenly became outwardly dark, as if the sun had disappeared from the heavens, causing a pause of alarm, some fearing the judgment-day was at hand, called for a light, saying he wished to proceed to business, and be found at his post of duty when the final catastrophe came. This is good counsel for us all, though from a _rebel’s_ pen. General McDowell, who was then one of our most popular commanders, seems to have had a just appreciation of Sherman. He wanted his services; and on the 13th of June, 1861, offered him the colonelcy of the Thirteenth Infantry in the regular army, the command dating May 14th of that year. A month of preparation for the field passed, and the first great meeting of the opposing armies summoned him to the war-path. July 16th, General McDowell, with thirty-two thousand five hundred men, moved in four divisions upon Manassas, through which lay the route to Richmond, the capital of Virginia and of the Confederacy. From Arlington Heights, Long Bridge, and Alexandria, the troops marched proudly forward, anticipating an early victory. Never before, my young reader, did a large army go to the plain of carnage with hearts so light and gay—“as if on a pic-nic excursion.” It was a splendid, and to most of the troops a novel spectacle, that march upon the “sacred soil” of the “Old Dominion,” to the animating notes of “The Star Spangled Banner” and other national airs. July 21st, the Sabbath day, the signals of battle were seen in our lines, regardless of the hallowed time, and confident of an almost bloodless conquest. Colonel Bowman, one of General Sherman’s officers since, and a faithful friend, has given a clear and unvarnished story of his part in the affray: