Our first company was led by an officer who had grown up in this village from a boy.[187] The older among us can well remember him at school, at play and at work, all the way up, the most amiable, sensible, unpretending of men; fair, blond, the rose lived long in his cheek; grave, but social, and one of the last men in this town you would have picked out for the rough dealing of war,—not a trace of fierceness, much less of recklessness, or of the devouring thirst for excitement; tender as a woman in his care for a cough or a chilblain in his men; had troches and arnica in his pocket for them. The army officers were welcome to their jest on him as too kind for a captain, and, later, as the colonel who got off his horse when he saw one of his men limp on the march, and told him to ride. But _he_ knew that his men had found out, first that he was captain, then that he was colonel, and neither dared nor wished to disobey him. He was a man without conceit, who never fancied himself a philosopher or a saint; the most modest and amiable of men, engaged in common duties, but equal always to the occasion; and the war showed him still equal, however stern and terrible the occasion grew,—disclosed in him a strong good sense, great fertility of resource, the helping hand, and then the moral qualities of a commander,—a patience not to be tired out, a serious devotion to the cause of the country that never swerved, a hope that never failed. He was a Puritan in the army, with traits that remind one of John Brown,—an integrity incorruptible, and an ability that always rose to the need.