Nearer came the soldiers, their long line of sloped bayonets glancing off the sunbeams with a peculiarly threatening aspect, and their equipments showing the perfection which has been accorded by the Old Bay State to all her troops, in contradistinction to the men of some of the other States, that have been allowed to go down to the conflict looking more like a mob of scarecrows than a body of trained soldiers. The Colonel, who rode first, lolled easily on his saddle, like one who had not mounted a horse for the first time when he first put on his sword-belts; the Captains of the various companies stepped out boldly and clearly in front of their men, turning occasionally to see that the line was properly kept; and the rank and file tramped on, their step almost steady enough for the march of veteran troops, and the dull thunder of the fall of each thousand of feet on the solid pavement, making the most impressive sound in the world except that supplied by the multitudinous clink of the iron hoofs of a cavalry squadron passing over the same stony road. It was an impressive spectacle, like all of the same kind that have preceded and followed it--a glorious spectacle, when the faces of most of the men were observed, and nothing of the despairing dullness of the conscript's eye seen there, but the vigorous pride and determination of men who were going forth at the call of their country to battle for that country to the death. And yet a sad spectacle, as all the others have been, when waste of life and mismanagement of power were taken into the account, and when the thinned ranks that should return, of the full ranks that went so proudly away, came to be remembered. Something of this latter feeling, and the peculiarities of the time, made the waving of handkerchiefs and the clapping of hands less frequent and cordial than the fine-looking fellows and their excellent appointments really deserved. "The d--l take the politics and policy of Massachusetts!" broke out Tom Leslie, when the array had half passed. "I do not like her, and never did. But she _does_ send out troops as the old Trojan horse poured out heroes; she _does_ know how to equip and take care of them, as _we_ do not; and they _fight_--oh, Harding, don't they?" "Not any better than most of our New York troops, I fancy!" replied Harding, an incarnate New Yorker, to the last observation.