The next thing which remains indelibly fixed in my memory is the surprise and terror which flashed across the whole North when we heard the news from Bull Run. Of course I do not remember the date of the battle, and I am obliged to refer to my history to find that it took place in July, 1861. But we boys in Pittsburg had been indulging in much loud talk, as boys will, of the way in which our soldiers were going to blow out the rebellion, as one would blow out a candle; and here came the news that these miserable rebels, whom we despised, had thrashed our glorious army terribly, and were thinking about walking into Washington. My impressions at the time were that a lot of Southern slave-drivers, armed with snake whips and wearing slouch-hats, would soon arrive in Pittsburg and make us all stand around and obey orders. My father about this time used to pace the floor in deep thought after reading the newspaper, and used to set off for business with a bowed head. Later in life I learned that in those days he drew his last twenty-five dollars out of the bank, and did not know where more was to come from. But I thought he expected to be killed or made a slave. The boys used to discuss what steps they would take if the rebels came, and it was pretty generally agreed that we would all have to run across the Monongahela River bridge, climb Coal Hill, and hide in the mines. From the time of Bull Run to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln my boyhood memories, as they come back to me now, present no orderly sequence of events. In a dim way I remember the distress and consternation caused by the dread event at Ball’s Bluff, and in an equally uncertain way I remember how we cheered and danced when the news of a victory arrived. Just across the street from my father’s house stood the Homœopathic Hospital, and next to it was a vacant lot in which pig-iron was stored. There we boys were wont to resort. We sat on the piles of pig metal and gravely discussed the progress of the war, and I well remember that one of my earliest combats arose from my proclaiming my belief that General Burnside was a greater man than George B. McClellan. That was rank treason; but I think Burnside’s whiskers made a conquest of me. I will add that the dispute ended in a triumphant victory for the defender of McClellan’s fame. Thereupon I went home to my mother and “told on” the defender. I got little consolation, for my mother said: “Don’t come to me. If a boy hits you, you must hit back; but don’t come in crying to me.” We were a warlike race in those days.