JOINING THE FEDERAL ARMY 211 



for uniting like states for protection and interchange. But 

 there was no such movement of the spirit as I found in others 

 at the mention of state or nation. My interest, then as now, 

 was in the purposes of governments, not in mere edifices. I am 

 not commending this rather arid state of mind ; it was to me a 

 misfortune, for the reason that it set and thus kept me apart 

 from my fellows. It is well for a man to have his adequate part 

 of all the primitive motives, even when he has to subjugate 

 them. I went about my business with the war not only without 

 enthusiasm, but in a hard, reckoning way, intending to do the 

 best I could to support the Union, as I would do the like for any 

 business institution in which I was concerned, and at the same 

 time to do what I could to maintain the rights of the several 

 states. 



As for the rest of my poor stock for the trade of war, it con- 

 sisted in a weak body that could not be expected to withstand 

 stress : there was no determined disease, but a general ineffi- 

 ciency. The extremity of this is well shown by the remark of 

 a rugged cherry-cheeked young friend, a certain Dr. P., who 

 was at the time of our parting also going to the Federal army. 

 He said, " Good-by, Shaler, you won't stand the racket three 

 months; you look like a ghost already." While I agreed with 

 him in his judgment as to my appearance, this frank statement 

 nettled me; so I proposed that the one who first crossed the 

 Styx, should sit on the further bank until the other one passed 

 over. We shook hands on that contract. If the dear fellow kept 

 the agreement, he has been waiting for me by the dark river 

 for four and forty years ; for he who seemed embodied toughness 

 went down at once, while the peripatetic ghost withstood far 

 more serious trials and came forth for decades of service. 



As soon as I arrived in Kentucky, I went straightway to 

 Frankfort, the state capital, to put myself in the line of service, 

 whatever it might be. I found there many, perhaps some score, 

 of the men I had known, my elders as well as those of my own 

 generation. I had from them at once a deep consolation in the 



