Lieutenant Somers was perfectly familiar with the company and battalion drill; and, having quick perception and abundant self-possession, he was competent at once to perform his duties as an officer. He had no vices to be criticized by the men, who respected him not only for his bravery on the battlefield, but for his good moral character; for even the vicious respect the virtues which they practically contemn. Being neither arbitrary nor tyrannical, he was cheerfully obeyed; and his company never appeared better than when, by the temporary absence of his superior, it was under his command. He was, however, allowed but a short time to become acquainted with the routine of the new duty before he was summoned to participate in those tremendous events which have passed into history as at once the most brilliant and disastrous operations of the war; brilliant in that our gallant army was almost invariably victorious, disastrous in that they were the forerunners of the ultimate failure of a hopeful campaign. The victory at Fair Oaks had raised the hopes of that brave, thinking army. The picket-lines were within a few miles of Richmond, and the soldiers were burning with enthusiasm to be led against the enemy in front of them. They were ready to lay down their lives on the altar of their bleeding country, if the survivors could grasp the boon of peace within the buttressed walls of the rebel capital--peace that would hurl to the ground the defiant traitors, and insure the safety and perpetuity of free institutions. The notes of victory, those thinking soldiers believed, would reverberate through the coming ages, and point an epoch from which America would date her grandest and most sublime triumphs. But not then was the great rebellion to be overthrown; for not yet had the leaven of Liberty leavened the whole lump; not yet had the purposes of a mysterious Providence been accomplished; and the brave men who sighed for victory and peace in the swamps of the Chickahominy were doomed to years of blood and toil, of victory and defeat, as they marched on, alike through both, to the consummation of a nation's glorious triumph, not over paltry armies of arrogant traitors, but over the incarnation of Evil, over Heaven-defying institutions, whose downfall established forever principles as eternal as God Himself. Lieutenant Somers was filled with the spirit of the army. He felt that the salvation of his country depended upon the valor of that army; and, impressed with the magnitude of the interests at stake, he was resolved to do his whole duty. With cheerful alacrity he obeyed the summons which brought Grover's brigade into line of battle on the morning of the eventful 25th of June. What was to be accomplished was not for him to know; but forward moved the line through the swamp, through the woods, through the pools of stagnant waters up to the hips of the soldiers.