Nearly every one had
some form of greeting for him. Introductions were not necessary.
Women as well as men passed the time of day with him, and not a few
of the former solicitously paused to inquire how he was feeling.
Young girls stared at him and blushed, young boys followed his
progress about town with wide, worshipful eyes,--for was he not a
hero out of their cherished romance? He had to hear from the lips
of ancient men the story of Antietam, of Chancellorsville and
of Shiloh; eulogies and criticisms of Grant, McClellan and Meade;
praise for the enemy chieftains, Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Johnston;
comparisons in the matter of fatalities, marksmanship, generalship,
hardships and all such, and with the inevitable conclusion that the
Civil War was the greatest war ever fought for the simple reason
that it was fought by men and not by machinery.
"And, what's more," declared old Captain House vigorously, "it was
fit entirely by Americans, and not by every dodgasted nation on the
face of the earth, no two of 'em able to understand a blamed word
of what was being said by friend er foe." "And," added ex-Corporal
Grimes, stamping the sidewalk with his peg leg, "what's more,
there wasn't ary one of them Johnny Rebs that couldn't pick off a
squirrel five hundred yards away with a rifle--a RIFLE, mind ye,
not a battery of machine guns. Every time they was a fight, big er
little, we used to stand out in the open and shoot at each other
like soldiers--AND gentlemen--aimin' straight at the feller we'd
picked out to kill.
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