Rousseau is fully six feet two, perhaps three inches high, and otherwise Herculean in build and strength. When mounted--he always rides great, ponderous, and invariably blooded horses--he displays to great advantage, and no more graceful and impressive figure can be conceived than Rousseau mounted. He was born a gentleman, and his elegant manners are as natural as his bravery and high sense of honor are intuitive. CHAPTER VII. PECULIARITIES OF VARIOUS GENERALS. I was particularly fortunate during the war in coming in frequent contact with the four great characters who most deeply impressed themselves upon the public mind, and won the first positions in the history of the era. Sherman, Thomas, Grant, and Sheridan were the ablest, and in the end the most successful of our leaders, and their fame is now a part of that of the country. Hooker and Rousseau were also representative soldiers, and will be quoted by posterity as examples, and regarded, not less than the others, as characters illustrative of the time and its events. Of the many other generals whom I met, and of whom I have many interesting and pleasing reminiscences to relate, there are none so distinctly marked for lasting and permanent fame as the six whom I have sketched in detail. Still many of those of whom I now propose to speak will attain a place in future history and obtain a firm hold in the mind of posterity as characters worthy of emulation or remembrance, as have the others. Circumstances conspired to rob a few of those whom I knew of their just fame; temporary greatness was thrust upon some totally unworthy of such distinction, while most of the others were _mediocre_, and could only have come to the surface of society in the general upheaval of a great revolution like that through which this country lately had the good fortune to pass to greater security and a grander future. Those I have sketched in detail were endowed with the unmistakable trait of greatness; the majority of those whom I remember possessed peculiarities merely, and their reputations were local. [Illustration: DON CARLOS BUELL.]