I had a moment of triumph also when we sang the _Rataplan, rataplan_. Since the early hit I had made with my drum I always played it as the Daughter of the Regiment, and when we came to this scene I directed the drum first toward one box and then toward the other, as I gave the rolling salute. The audience went mad again; and again the orchestra had to stop until the clapping and the hurrahs had subsided. It may not have been a great operatic performance but it was a great evening! Such moments written about afterwards in cold words lose their thrill. They bring up no pictures except to those who have lived them. But on a night such as that, one's heart seems like a musical instrument, wonderfully played upon. Between the acts the two distinguished officers came behind the scenes and were introduced to the artists, making pleasant speeches to us all. Immediately, I liked best the personality of General Grant. There was nothing the least spectacular or egotistical about him; he was absolutely simple and quiet and unaffected. He bewildered me by apologising courteously for not being able to shake hands with me. "You have had an accident to your hand!" I exclaimed. "Not exactly an accident," he said, smiling. "I think I may call it design!" He explained that he had shaken hands with so many people that he could not use his right hand for a while. He held it out for me to see and, sure enough, it was terribly swollen and inflamed and must have been very painful. The great evening came to an end at last. We were not sorry on the whole for, thrilling as it had been, it had been also very tiring. I wonder if such mad, national excitement could come to people to-day? I cannot quite imagine an opera performance being conducted on similar lines in the Metropolitan Opera House. Perhaps, however, it is not because we are less enthusiastic but because our events are less dramatic. In recalling General Sherman I find myself thinking of him chiefly in the later years of my acquaintance with him. After that Chicago night, he never failed to look me up when I sang in any city where he was and we grew to be good friends. He was always quite enthusiastic about operatic music; much more so than General Grant. He confided to me once that above all songs he especially disliked _Marching through Georgia_, and that, naturally, was the song he was constantly obliged to listen to. People, of course, thought it must be, or ought to be, his favourite melody. But he hated the tune as well as the words. He was desperately tired of the song and, above all, he detested what it stood for, and what it forced him to recall. [Illustration: =General William Tecumseh Sherman, 1877= From a photograph by Mora]