Even Pryor,
as chivalric in action as truculent in debate, now admits that the
Yankees will fight. Fredericksburg's butchery is a victory of note.
All the year the noise of battle rolls, while the Eastern war is
undecided, for the second Manassas and awful Antietam balance each
other. Maxime Valois feels the issue is lost. When the shock of
battle has been tried at Corinth, where lion-like Rosecrans conquers,
when the glow of the onset fades away, his heart sinks. He knows
that the iron-jointed men of the West are the peers of any race in
the field.
Ay! In the West it is fighting from the first. Donelson, Shiloh,
and Corinth lead up to the awful death shambles of Stone River,
Vicksburg, and Chickamauga. These are scenes to shake the nerve of
the very bravest.
Heading his troops on the march, watching the thousand baleful
fires of the enemy at night, when friend and foe go down in the
thundering crash of battle, Valois, amazed, asks himself, "Are
these sturdy foes the Northern mudsills?"
For, proud and dashing as the Louisiana Tigers and Texan Rangers
prove, steady and vindictive the rugged Mississippians, dogged and
undaunted the Georgians, fierce the Alabamans--the honest candor
of Valois tells him no human valor can excel the never-yielding
Western troops.
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