When I came into his room I found the General--pipe and coffee for the moment in retirement--to his own evident satisfaction, but in a rusty raven voice I fear, humming _The Star Spangled Banner_. His eyes were closed. He was sitting by the fire, beating out the time of the music with pipe held like a baton in his claw-like hand, wearing meanwhile much the air of your critic at an opera. His notes slipped frequently into quavers, and there was constant struggle to keep from lapsing into the savage minor key. “You make grewsome music for a bright morning, General,” said I; “it sounds dolefully like a wail.” “That's a majestic tune, Major,” he replied, opening his eyes. “It never fails to stir me, and would bear comparison with _Old Hundred_, albeit one tells of religion and the other of patriotism. After all, what should be the separation between true patriotism and true religion?” “Last evening,” I retorted, “you fell upon me hip and thigh because I said you were not a politician but a president; you would have it that the two were synonyms for each other. Also, you declared that no one might be both a politician and a Christian. Now you talk of no separation between patriotism and religion. General, you go to bed in one frame and get, up in another; you are not consistent.” “I'll not quarrel with you,” said he, “though to say, as you would seem to, that a president and a patriot are ever the same, is begging the question and a far shot from the truth. I still stick for it, however, that _The Star Spangled Banner_ comes close to religion in its influence; I've heard it given while the big guns were speaking at the front, and I may tell you, sir, it brought water to my eyes.” I could well believe this, for the General was as soon to shed tears as a woman; and withal so readily excited that on least occasion his hand would shake like a leaf in a ripple of wind. He said the latter was from coffee and tobacco and not from natural nervousness. He was half right and half wrong. This tremble of the hands was the vibration of that mighty machinery of the man when the belts were thrown on for utter action. However, this is all aside the story.