It was a problem based purely upon military experience gained by hard knocks and campaigns and in battles--seasoned up with plenty of good, sound horse sense--combined with our battle discipline and morale; courage, resourcefulness and powers of endurance entered, of course, as factors. These were our guides. One's complete education, and years of the most violent intensive training ever devised by any military machine of West Point Manufacture would have accomplished absolutely nothing along the lines we worked to secure the unqualified success--that was expected and demanded of us by such an exacting soldier as Mackenzie. There was nothing the writer had so laboriously studied and learned in his course at West Point that could by any construction or stretch of the imagination, have fitted in, or been of the slightest use in this problem. No Mathematics--No Algebra with its "Binomial Theorem;" no plane Geometry with its fascinating "Pons Asinorum"; No Trigonometry with its sines and co-sines; no Descriptive or Analytical Geometry with planes of reference, etc. No Calculus with its integrations and differentiations; or equations "A" and "B". No Spherical Astronomy with its "Polaris"--or projections of the Eclipse; No Optics or Acoustics. No spectral Analysis. No trays of Minerals--with the blow pipe and testing acids to determine "Fools Gold" or Iron Pyrites from the real article, would have fitted one for the real acid test when the most critical stage of the game--confronted him. Neither would the perfect tactical drills--magnificent parades and inspections which have so delighted foreign visitors and the American people who have a right to be so proud--as the writer is himself--of our great National Military Academy--probably the finest Academy in the world-- But--and here comes the crux of one's best endeavors along military lines where complete success is the goal--the education the writer gained during that Civil War--the daily experience--the frequent campaign and battle tests--the self control--the patience--the confidence--the discipline and morale, tried out as in a crucible--the strength, steadiness and tenacity of purpose under battle conditions--with rifle, shrapnel and canister fire--for there were no machine guns or grenades in those days--in such battles as Bull Run--Antietam, Fredericksburg--Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, etc., and the influences which they wrought upon one's character in later years to deal with things that to some men would appear to be simply impossible--all these combined with the true military spirit--and good, common sense were the determining factors in that strange adventure so far as they are able to guide us in this mysterious and complex game of life--or can enter into the human problems in which we engage and are ever attempting to solve to our satisfaction and credit. Such was the philosophy and logical reasoning of we two "hold overs" of the Civil War, as we plodded