Page:Maud Howe - Atlanta in the South.djvu/104

 "It was not until the war had fairly begun; and then, once in for it, we fought for all we were worth. I was seventeen years old when I enlisted. I did not know—I doubt if a man in our company knew—what we were going to fight for. 'States' rights' was the battle-cry in those earliest days. My father opposed the secession of Louisiana in the Senate until the last; and then when his State went, right or wrong, he went with her and took his two sons along with him. Well, well, sir, those times are best forgotten; but it's strange—isn't it?—that you and I, blown up by the same gunpowder under the lee of this old ship, should meet aboard of her all these years afterward. She 's a solid old hulk yet, and has been done over with new fittings half-a-dozen times since the day she got that rattling fire in her sides. You and I have not fared quite so well, eh? By Jove, General, it sounds like a romance. Shall we go below and take something to freshen up our memories?"

They left the deck, the gay company, the cheering sailors, the booming guns, and found their way to the ward-room below.

"I drink your health, sir," said the General, lifting his glass.

"Yours, sir. Let us drink together to the greatest government the world has ever known,