Staying at the same hotel were two American Generals of great, but unlike celebrity,--Sheridan, the famous cavalry hero, and Burnside, who lost the battle of Fredericksburg. They made most friendly advances towards the Americans of our Staff; but their attentions were received by the latter with the utmost indifference, as they might have anticipated; for our men, with the exception of Hayden, were Southerners, and hated the ground these Yankees trod upon. Nigger Charlie, whom their efforts had made a freeman, gnashed his teeth at Sheridan when that General condescended to notice him. It was an honour of which the darkie felt by no means proud. I may here state that no one who has not lived for some time among a number of Southerners can realise how bitter was their hatred in those years towards the North. So great was it, indeed, that, when they could avoid it, they would not even eat at the same table, or have any social intercourse with them. I must add my suspicion that this was strictly true only in the case of men like my _confrères_, who had been large slave-owners and landed proprietors; and who, having been completely ruined by the war, had gone into voluntary exile. On such as these the indulgent policy of the United States Government, after the ruin of the Southern cause, had no power to efface the memory of what they had lost. Wherever one travelled in Europe twenty years ago, one still found Southern exiles, as deeply imbued with hatred of the Yankee as if their subjugation had taken place only the day before. But that feeling was not likely to outlive them. And I am told that the gentlemen of Virginia and South Carolina have acquiesced now in the abolition of slavery, against which they fought so fiercely and to such little purpose, although we have just been witnessing the renewal of their efforts to disfranchise the coloured voters, and restore the local and State government to their own class. But I am wandering from my subject. As I have already said, our chief's private wish was, if possible, to get into Paris; and, with this object in view, Dr. Pratt held a long consultation with Colonel Lloyd Lindsay, R.A., president of the English Society, from whom we now awaited our orders. He declared the project impossible, and placed our contingent at the service of Prince Pless, Inspector-General of the German Ambulance Corps, who told us that we were wanted very badly indeed at Orleans, where there had been some days' severe fighting, with great loss on both sides. The town was full of wounded, and the medical staff quite insufficient to take charge of them.