William W. Bennett, A narrative of the great revival which prevailed in the Southern armies during the late Civil War

to annex the character of gaiety, levity, and sprightly freedom, as well as of some degree of dissipation, to the military profession. Yet, if we were to consider what mood or tone of temper would be most suitable to this situation, we should be apt to determine, perhaps, that the most serious and thoughtful turn of mind would best become those whose lives are continually exposed to uncommon danger, and who should, therefore, be more constantly occupied with the thoughts of death and its consequences than other men. It is this very circumstance, however, which is not improbably the occasion why the contrary turn of mind prevails so much among men of this profession. It requires so great an effort to conquer the fear of death, when we survey it with steadiness and attention, that those who are constantly exposed to it find it easier to turn away their thoughts from it altogether, to wrap themselves up in careless security and indifference, and to plunge themselves, for this purpose, into every sort of amusement and dissipation. A camp is not the element of a thoughtful or melancholy man; persons of that cast, indeed, are often abundantly determined, and are capable, by a great effort, of going on with inflexible resolution to the most unavoidable death. But to be exposed to continual, though less imminent danger, to be obliged to exert, for a long time, a degree of this effort exhausts and depresses the mind and renders it incapable of all happiness and enjoyment.

The gay and careless, who have occasion to make no effort at all, who fairly resolve never to look before them, but to lose in continual pleasure and amusement all anxiety about their situation, more easily support such circumstances.

This is the language of a very eminent philosopher. There is truth and error in it. This effort on the part of the soldier to turn away his thoughts from death is only the more open manifestation of his former indifference to