He regarded the sunbrowned, careless youths with the genuine affection of a brother.

Many of them were as young as he or younger, but they were now veterans of battle and march.

Napoleon's soldiers themselves could not have boasted of more experience than they.
He was coming to the last link in the steel chain, and the colonel of a regiment, an old man, warned him to be careful as he approached the river.
"Southern sharpshooters are among the ravines and thickets," he said.
"They fired on our lads about dawn and then escaped easily in the thick cover." "Thank you, sir," said Dick, "I'll be on my guard." Yet he did not feel the presence of danger.

Youth perhaps becomes more easily hardened in war than middle age, or perhaps it thinks less of consequences.

The Union cannon, many of great weight and power, had begun already to fire upon Vicksburg.