In the evening we had a good supper, with wine and cigars, and, as we sat talking, B....

spoke of his father and mother, in Louisville, got leave to write them a long letter without its being read by any one, and then we talked about the war.

He said: "What is the use of your persevering?
It is simply impossible to subdue eight millions of people;" asserting that "the feeling in the South had become so embittered that a reconciliation was impossible." I answered that, "sitting as we then were, we appeared very comfortable, and surely there was no trouble in our becoming friends." "Yes," said he, "that is very true of us, but we are gentlemen of education, and can easily adapt ourselves to any condition of things; but this would not apply equally well to the common people, or to the common soldiers." I took him out to the camp-fires behind the tent, and there were the men of his escort and mine mingled together, drinking their coffee, and happy as soldiers always seem.

I asked B....

what he thought of that, and he admitted that I had the best of the argument.