His was the battle of the people of the future, and God had marked him deeply for His own.

And yet it was a human man, too, and none of the immortal gods standing there.

On occasion his laugh rang as loudly, or his heart beat as quickly as that of the most careless boy among his soldiers.

He was fond of the good things of life too,--loving good wine, fair women, a well-told story, a good jest, pleasant society, and delighting in struggle and contest as well.

He preserved habitually the just balance of his strong nature by the exercise of an unusual self-control, and he rarely allowed himself to step beyond that mean of true propriety, so well called the happy, except at long intervals through a violent outbreak of his passionate temper, rendered more terrible and blasting from its very infrequency.
And this was the man upon whom was laid the burden of the war of the Revolution, and to whom, under God, were due the mighty results of that epoch-making contest.