While these events were occupying public attention there occurred another, little noted at the time, but which was soon to be of controlling importance. Feb. 6 there marched up from the steamboat landing to the Arsenal a company of 80 Regular soldiers of the 2d U. S., from Fort Riley, Kan., at the head of which was a Captain, under the average hight, and a well knit but rather slender frame. He had a long, narrow face, with full, high forehead, keen, deep-set blue eyes, and hair and whiskers almost red. His face was thoughtful but determined, his manner quick and nervous. He bore himself towards his men as an exact and rigid disciplinarian, mingled with thoughtful kindness for all who did their duty and tried their best This was Capt. Nathaniel Lyon, born in Connecticut, descended from old Puritan stock, with the blood of Cromwell's Ironsides flowing in his veins. He was then 42 years old, and before another birthday was to fill the country with his fame, and fall in battle-face to the front. He had graduated from West Point in 1841, the 11th in his class. That his intellectual abilities were of high order is shown by his standing in that class, of which Zealous B. Tower, an eminent engineer, and brevet Major-General, U. S. A., was the head, and Horatio G. Wright, who commanded the Sixth Corps during the last and greatest year of its history, was the second. [Illustration: 010-General Lyon] Gen. John F. Reynolds, the superb commander of the First Corps and of the Right Wing of the Army of the Potomac, with which he brought on the battle of Gettysburg, where he was killed, graduated 26th in the class, and Gen. Don Carlos Buell, who organized and commanded the Army of the Ohio, graduated 32d. Gen. Robert Garnett, the first Confederate General officer to fall in the struggle,--killed July 13, 1861, at Carrick's Ford,--was the 27th in the class. Julius P. Garesche, who graduated 16th in the class, became Chief of Staff to Gen. Rosecrans, and was killed at Stone River. 52 Besides being thoroughly versed in all that related to his profession of arms, Capt. Lyon was well informed in history and general literature; was a devoted student of the Bible and Shakspere, and wrote well and forcibly. What was very rare among the officers of the old Army, he was a radical Abolitionist, and believer in the National Sovereignty. He was so outspoken in these views as to render his position quite unpleasant, where nearly every one was so antagonistic. A weaker-willed man would have been forced either out of the Army or into tacit acquiescence with the prevailing sentiment.