Julius scratched his head and walled his eyes: "I had er little taste ob it, sah,----" "Well, you tried to fight, didn't you?" "No, sah,--I run." "Ran at the first fire?" "Yas, _sah_! An' I'd a ran sooner ef I'd er known hit wuz comin'----" Julius paused and broke into a jolly laugh: "Dey git one pop at me, sah, 'fore I seed what dey wuz doin'!" The President suppressed a laugh and gazed at Julius with severity: "That wasn't very creditable to your courage." "Dat ain't in my line, sah,--I'se er cook." "Have you no regard for your reputation?" "Dat ain't nuttin' ter me, sah, 'side er life!" "And your life is worth more than other people's?" "Worth er lot mo' ter me, sah." "I'm afraid they wouldn't have missed you, Julius, if you'd been killed." "Na, sah, but I'd a sho missed myself an' dat's de pint wid me." The President fixed him with a comical frown: "It's sweet and honorable to die for one's country, Julius!" "Yassah--dat's what I hear--but I ain't fond er sweet things--I ain't nebber hab no taste fer 'em, sah!" "Well, it looks like I'll have to let 'em have you, Julius, for an example. I've tried to save you--but there doesn't seem to be any thing to take hold of. Every time I grab you, you slip right through my fingers. I reckon they'll have to shoot you----" The negro broke into a hearty laugh: "G'way fum here, Mr. President! You can't fool me, sah. I sees yer laughin' right now way back dar in yo' eyes. You ain't gwine let 'em shoot me. I'se too vallable a nigger fer dat. I wuz worth er thousan' dollars 'fore de war. I sho' oughter be wuth two thousan' now. What's de use er 'stroyin' er good piece er property lak dat? I won't be no good ter nobody ef dey shoots me!" The President broke down at last, leaned back in his chair and laughed with every muscle of his long body. Julius joined him with unction. When the laughter died away the tall figure bent over his desk and wrote an order for the negro's release, and discharge from the army. One of the things which had brought the President his deepest joy in the victory of Vicksburg was not the importance of the capture of the city and the opening of the Mississippi so much as the saving of U. S. Grant as a commanding General. From the capture of Fort Donelson, the eyes of the Chief Magistrate had been fixed on this quiet fighter. And then came the disaster to his army at Shiloh--the first day's fight a bloody and overwhelming defeat--the second the recovery of the ground lost and the death of Albert Sydney Johnston, his brilliant Confederate opponent. As a matter of fact, in its results, the battle had been a crushing disaster to the South. But Grant had lost fourteen thousand men in the two days' carnage and it was the first great field of death the war had produced. McClellan had not yet met Lee before Richmond. The cry against Grant was furious and practically universal.