but intelligent and learned enough to understand the nature of the power thus imposed on them. No officer of the United States army has ever questioned or ever will question the fundamental principles of our Constitution; but when the Congress has declared war, has provided the ways and means, and the President, as constitutional commander-in-chief, has indicated the measures, then the soldier goes in with confidence to restore peace. Of these measures the commanding officer on the spot must often be the sole judge. The law then becomes the law of war and not of peace.

In this article I have purposely abstained from treating of general and staff officers. In my judgment, a good, well-managed garrison on the frontier, or anywhere, is the best possible school for generals, and even staff officers; and I shall regard it as a fatal mistake if the cavalry and artillery shall be withdrawn from the school of application at Fort Leavenworth, because the three arms of the service should be associated in daily duties, on drill, and on the march, so that when war compels them to be assembled in the

same army, as must inevitably be the case, their habits will be already established. Out of these will come the natural leaders, who can select the necessary staff or assistants.

W. T. SHERMAN.

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A

CAMP-FIRES OF THE G. A. R.

RECENT visit to Columbus, Ohio, Septem

ber 10-14, convinces me that the young people, male and female, of the interior of our country feel an increased interest in the events of the Civil War.

I did believe, and may have so expressed myself in former years, that the interest, enthusiasm and élan would die out with one or two generations; but not so. There were present at Columbus as many ex-soldiers, their wives, children and families, as could have been assembled in 1865; as many as forty thousand ex-soldiers and sixty thousand citizens, male and female, other than the resident population (eighty thousand) of that capital city. This is not a mere guess, but a professional estimate based on numbers and measurements made on the spot. The same or similar results have been noted at Toledo, Indianapolis, Springfield and St. Paul. The people of the

great Northwest, whose first centennial was in part the occasion of the recent meeting at Columbus, are more peculiarly American than similar crowds elsewhere, and give us one element of value in the problem of integral calculus for the "next centennial."

I mingled with this crowd in halls, in great tents and on the streets-and though individuals took liberties with my hand and person not contemplated by army regulations, I will bear witness that in the four days of my stay I did not hear a coarse word, see a single drunken man, or observe any infraction of the common police regulations for crowds. I have known Columbus from boyhood, and am sure the people to-day are better and more refined than they were fifty years ago. In accomplishing this result the Civil War and the Grand Army of the Republic have been important factors; and in this paper I desire to invite public attention to one feature of the Grand Army of the Republic-its "camp-fire." The mere name suggests its object. Imagine a group of intelligent soldiers after night-the march done -supper over, and things put away for an early

start a clear sky above and a bright fire beneath, you have the perfection of human comfort, and the most perfect incentive to good fellowship. Of course to make the scene more perfect there must enter the element of danger, but that is now past, and the "camp fire" of the Grand Army is a mere assemblage of comrades absolutely on an equal footing, regardless of former rank, yet subject to self-imposed discipline; the comrades may be seated round their hall or at tables, with the simplest and cheapest fare, when they sing their old war songs, tell their old war stories, or in the soldier's phrase "swap lies," and transact their business of "charity." Now at this very hour around their many camp-fires are being spun the yarns which in time will be the warp and woof of history. For mathematical accuracy, one should go to the interesting tables of statistics compiled by adjutants-general, but for the living, radiant truth, commend me to the "camp-fire." My memory of camp-fires goes back to the everglades of Florida, and the days of the trappers in the Rockies and California, and people who suppose these men were rude, coarse and violent, are