Were not comparisons odious we might unreservedly affirm that he was fully capable of the zeal displayed by one of our major-generals who, on or about August 29, 1862, rushed toward the sound of John Pope's cannon at a hold-the-fort-for-I-am-coming velocity of six miles a day. We may furthermore safely claim for him devotion at least equal to that displayed by another major-general, coincidently negatively pregnant, who drank from the same canteen and simultaneously telegraphed to Pope from Alexandria, proposing to reinforce him with every wagon in camp if he would send back cavalry for an escort! There is a period in every battle when the bravest soldier would donate liberally to the missionary cause for trustworthy assurance of scathless emergence. The most valorous among us are at times conciliatory and pacific as an intimidated husband just emerging from a domestic cyclone cellar. Human nature is not perpetually keyed up to the Marco Bozarris pitch. Marvel not then that the astute Lincoln, when informed that a general and forty Mules had been captured by the enemy, put on that far-away, lodge-of-sorrow look and plaintively remarked: "I am sorry to lose the Mules." Generals, brave to the point of recklessness and beyond it, could be made as easily as bonanza Christians, who join the church by typewriter and are baptized by telegraph--but Mules had a specific, ascertainable value. The Army Mule's market value or cost to the government ranged from one hundred and fifteen to one hundred and fifty dollars. This price was established when he was first brought in and exhibited to all intents and purposes as an article of merchandise. He was then largely occupied in attempting to conceal exclusive knowledge of certain secluded green pastures; winking slyly to himself in the excess of his cunning, all unaware of the multiplex miseries stored away for him in the immediate future. The price was generally satisfactory, for the service sighed for him. But the Mule did not receive the money. Far from it! A part of it went to his loyal owner, so called. We all knew him. He was suave as a Scotchman who has adopted the manners and customs of civilization. He was cheerful as the radiant old circuit rider who preaches to a mixed congregation in a boom suburb, from a text found in lot 3, block 12, of Timothy's second subdivision. In every crisis he was first to stay at home and readiest to volunteer his moral support in putting down insurrection.