the horses and mules, and the other for the
use of the men, and guards were placed to
insure a strict observance of those orders.
There was but little cooking of rations, the
men being so used up that they contented
themselves with their "hard tack," or
biscuits, rather than undergo the exertion of
cutting wood, and of worrying themselves
with the task of cooking; in fact, all sought
rest, and that evening was the quietest I
had ever known in a bivouac.

An hour before sunrise the following
morning, we resumed our march, and
about mid-day the head of the column
entered the town of Jackson. The men,
footsore, parched, and exhausted, limped
through the streets, and moving to their
old camping-ground in the river bottom,
they caught sight of the sparkling stream.
Breaking rank, they rushed frantically to
the bank, where some threw themselves
down and drank deeply, whilst others,
more insatiate, leaped bodily into the
current and were drowned.

During this retreat from the Big Black
to Jackson, over three hundred men died
from thirst and exhaustion, and two days
afterwards the worn-out battalions had to
defend, unsuccessfully, the capital of
Mississippi against the victorious and
overwhelming forces of Grant.

                 ONLY A WORD!
A FRIVOLOUS word, a sharp retort,
    A parting in angry haste,
The sun that rose on a bower of bliss,
The loving look and the tender kiss,
    Has set on a barren waste,
Where pilgrims tread with weary feet
Paths destined never more to meet.

A frivolous word, a sharp retort,
   A moment that blots out years,
Two lives are wrecked on a stormy shore,
Where billows of passion surge and roar
   To break in a spray of tears;
Tears shed to blind the severed pair
Drifting seaward and drowning there.

A frivolous word, a sharp retort,
    A flash from a passing cloud,
Two hearts are scathed to their inmost core,
Are ashes and dust for evermore.
   Two faces turn to the crowd,
Masked by pride with a life-long lie,
To hide the scars of that agony.

A frivolous word, a sharp retort,
    An arrow at random sped,
It has cut in twain the mystic tie
That had bound two souls in harmony,
    Sweet Love lies bleeding or dead.
A poisoned shaft with scarce an aim,
Has done a mischief sad as shame.

A frivolous word, a sharp retort,
    Alas! for the loves and lives
So little a cause has rent apart;
Tearing the fondest heart from heart
    As a whirlwind rends and rives,
Never to reunite again,
But live and die in secret pain.

A frivolous word, a sharp retort,
    Alas! that it should be so!
The petulant speech, the careless tongue,
Have wrought more evil, and done more wrong,
    Have brought to the world more woe
Than all the armies age to age
Records on hist'ry's blood-stained page.

    OLD SCORES BETWEEN FRANCE
                    AND PRUSSIA. .

WE have to go back through more than
a hundred years of history before we come
to the day when the French and Prussians
first crossed swords.

In 1741, Frederick, afterwards surnamed
the Great, who had but recently succeeded
his father Frederick William, resolved to
make some practical use of the prodigious
treasure, and the fine army of sixty thousand
men, which that truculent old drill-sergeant,
worshipped by Mr. Carlyle, had
left him. Reviving an antiquated claim, he
poured thirty thousand men into Silesia,
and from Breslau proposed negotiations
with Maria Theresa. The proud Austrian,
rejecting terms by which Lower Silesia
was to be ceded to Prussia, sent General
Neuperg to expel the intruder. After four
hours' savage fighting at Molwitz, Neuperg
was driven back, and the reduction of Glatz
and Neiss was soon followed by the
submission of the whole province of Silesia.
At Molwitz the Austrian and Hungarian
cavalry at first carried all before them,
pillaged the royal baggage, and all but made
Frederick prisoner; but the second line of
Prussian infantry fired with such celerity,
in consequence of a new and simpler
exercise taught them by their young king,
and stood so firm, that they eventually won
the battle.

France, eager to share in the spoil of
Austria, instantly joined Prussia, and
proposed to throw at once forty-five thousand
men over the Rhine, and to advance to the
Danube, while a second army of sixty thousand
men should be formed on the side of
Westphalia, and overawe Hanover. The
avowed object of the French king was to
place upon the imperial throne Charles
Albert, elector of Bavaria. After threatening
Vienna, the elector marched to Bohemia,
stormed Prague, and was crowned emperor
at Frankfort. After this good fortune
the elector's star declined, Munich was
taken by the Austrians, and the King of
Prussia, marching to assist the French in
Bohemia, overthrew the Austrians and all
their wild hordes of Croats and Pandours
at Czaslau. The King of Prussia edged