On the Rappahannock, when I saw him first, Mohun had been cynical, bitter, full of gloomy misanthropy. Something seemed to have hardened him, and made him hate his species. In the bloom of early manhood, when his life was yet in the flower, and should have prompted him to all kind and sweet emotions, he was a stranger to all--to charity, good-will, friendship, all that makes life endurable. The tree was young and lusty; the spring was not over; freshness and verdure should have clothed it; and yet it appeared to have been blasted. What had dried up its sap, I asked myself--withering and destroying it? What thunder-bolt had struck this sturdy young oak? I could not answer--but from the first moment of our acquaintance, Mohun became for me a problem. Then the second phase presented itself. When I met him in the Wilderness, in May, 1864, a great change had come over him. He was no longer bitter and cynical. The cloud had plainly swept away, leaving the skies of his life brighter. Gayety had succeeded gloom. The rollicking enjoyment of the true cavalryman had replaced the recklessness of the man-hater. Again I looked at him with attention--for his courage had made me admire him, and his hidden grief had aroused my sympathy. A great weight had plainly been lifted from his shoulders; he breathed freer; the sap long dried up had begun to flow again; and the buds told that the leaves of youth and hope were about to reappear. What was the meaning of that? Now the third phase of the man had come to excite in me more surprise and interest than the former ones. This time the change was complete. Mohun seemed no longer himself. Was the man riding beside me the old Mohun of 1863? Where was the gloomy misanthropy--where the rollicking humor? They had quite disappeared. Mohun’s glance was gentle and his countenance filled with a charming modesty and sweetness. His voice, once so cold, and then so hilarious, had grown calm, low, measured, almost soft. His smile was exquisitely cordial; his glance full of earnestness and sweetness. The heaven-born spirit of kindness--that balm for all the wounds of human existence--shone in his eyes, on his lips, in every accent of his voice. Colonel Mohun had been reckless, defiant, unhappy, or wildly gay. General Mohun was calm, quietly happy it seemed. You would have said of him, formerly, “This is a man who fights from hatred of his enemies, or the exuberant life in him.” Now you would have said, “This is a patriot who fights from principle, and is worthy to die in a great cause.” What had worked this change? I asked myself once more. Was it love? Or was it the conviction which the Almighty sends to the most hardened, that life is not made to indulge hatred, but to love and perform our duty in? I knew not; but there was the phenomenon before me. Mohun was certainly a new man, and looked on life and the world around him with a gentleness and kindness of which I had believed him incapable.