If you will come to my rooms in -- -- Street tomorrow, Number 999, I will not promise, but I think that I shall have made up my mind to tell you what I have to tell, and to place in your hands that portion of the evidence which is still at my command--evidence that has a significance of its own, to which my experience is merely episodical." I spent that evening with the family of a friend, one of several former officers of the Confederacy, whose friendship is the one permanent and valuable result of my American tour.

I mentioned the Colonel's name, and my friend, the head of the family, having served with him through the Virginian campaigns, expressed the highest confidence in his character, the highest opinion of his honour and veracity; but spoke with bitter regret and pain of the duels in which he had been engaged, especially of one which had been fatal; remarking that the motive in each instance remained unknown even to the seconds.
"I am sure," he said "that they were not, could not have been, fought for the one cause that would justify them and explain the secrecy of the quarrel--some question involving female honour or reputation.

I can hardly conceive that any one of his adversaries could have called in question in any way the personal loyalty of Colonel A----; and, as you remarked of General M----, it is too absurd for a man who had faced over and over again the fire of a whole brigade, who had led charges against fourfold numbers, to prove his personal courage with sword or pistol, or to think that any one would have doubted either his spirit or his nerve had he refused to fight, whatever the provocation.

Moreover, in each case he was the challenger." "Then these duels have injured him in Southern opinion, and have probably tended to isolate him from society ?" "No," he replied.

"Deeply as they were regretted and disapproved, his services during the war were so brilliant, and his personal character stands so high, that nothing could have induced his fellow-soldiers to put any social stigma upon him.