So Lanier spoke in the sober maturity of his manhood of the great tragedy through which he with his section passed. But during the war there was but one idea in his mind, and that was that he might take part in the establishment of a Confederacy. He dreamed with his people of a nation that might be the embodiment of all that was fine in government and in society, that the "new Confederacy was to enter upon an era of prosperity such as no other nation, ancient or modern, had ever enjoyed, and that the city of Macon, his birthplace and home, was to become a great art centre." In this hope, soon after finishing the year's work at Oglethorpe,* he volunteered for service and went to Virginia to join the Macon Volunteers, who had left Georgia early in April -- the first company that went out of the State to Virginia. It was an old company that had won distinction in the Mexican War, and was the special pride of the city of Macon. The company was stationed for several months near Norfolk, where Lanier experienced some of the joys of city life in those early days when war was largely a picnic -- a holiday time it was -- "the gay days of mandolin and guitar and moonlight sails on the James River."

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* The faculty and students almost to a man enlisted in the army; and the college buildings were afterwards used for barracks and hospitals. President Talmage lost his mind by reason of the conflict between his affection for his native and for his adopted section.
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In the main, however, they played "Marsh-Divers and Meadow-Crakes", their principal duties being to picket the beach, and their "pleasures and sweet rewards-of-toil consisting in agues which played dice with our bones, and blue-mass pills that played the deuce with our livers."* The company was sent in 1862 to Wilmington, N.C., where they experienced a pleasant change in the style of fever, "indulging for two or three months," continues Lanier, "in what are called the `dry shakes of the sand hills', a sort of brilliant, tremolo movement, brilliantly executed upon `that pan-pipe, man', by an invisible but very powerful performer." From here, where they were engaged in building Fort Fisher, they were called to Drewry's Bluff; and from there to the Chickahominy, participating in the seven days' fighting around Richmond. Just before the battle of Malvern Hill they marched all night through drenching rain, over torn and swampy roads. These were the only important battles in which Lanier took part. Soon afterwards he was in a little gunboat fight or two on the south bank of the James River. On August 26 they were sent to Petersburg to rest. While there he enjoyed the use of the city library. He and his brother and two friends were transferred to the signal corps, which was considered at that time the most efficient in the Southern army, and, becoming soon proficient in the system, attracted the attention of the commanding officer, who formed them into a mounted field squad and attached them to the staff of Major-General French. "Often Lanier and a friend," says the latter officer, "would come to my quarters and pass the evenings with us, where the `alarums of war' were lost in the soft notes of their flutes, for Lanier was an excellent musician."** Lanier tells in a letter written to his father at that time of four Georgia privates with one general, six captains, and one lieutenant, serenading the city.

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* The account of Lanier's war experiences is based on the poet's letters to Northrup, the reminiscences of Clifford Lanier, Lanier's unpublished letters to his father, `Tiger Lilies', and the `Official Records of the War of the Rebellion'.
** `A History of Two Wars', by Samuel G. French.
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One of the most precious memories of Lanier's war career was that of General Lee attending religious services in Petersburg. The height of every Confederate soldier's ambition was to get a glimpse of the beloved general, who was the idol of his soldiers. Lanier reverenced him as one of the greatest of men. In later years he gave his ideal of what a great musician ought to be. "A great artist," he said, "should have the sensibility and expressive genius of Schumann, the calm grandeur of Lee, and the human breadth of Shakespeare, all in one." In his "Confederate Memorial Address" he speaks of Lee as "stately in victory, stately in defeat; stately among the cannon, stately among the books; stately in solitude, stately in society; stately in form, in soul, in character, and in action." Fortunately he had the chance to see him under specially interesting circumstances. He afterwards related the incident to the Confederate veterans in Macon: "The last time that I saw with mortal eyes -- for, with spiritual eyes, many, many times have I contemplated him since -- the scene was so beautiful, the surroundings were so rare, nay, time and circumstance did so fitly frame him, as it were, that I think the picture should not be lost. . . . It was at fateful Petersburg, on one glorious Sunday morning, whilst the armies of Grant and Butler were investing our last stronghold there. It had been announced, to those who happened to be stationed in the neighborhood of General Lee's headquarters, that religious services would be conducted on that morning by Major-General Pendleton. At the appointed time I strolled over to Dunn's Hill, where General Lee's tent was pitched, and found General Pendleton ensconced under a magnificent tree, and a small party of soldiers, with a few ladies from the dwelling near by, collected about him. In a few moments, General Lee appeared with his camp chair, and sat down. The services began. That terrible battery, Number Five, was firing, very slowly, each report of the great guns making the otherwise profound silence still more profound. I sat down on the grass and gazed, with such reverence as I had never given to mortal man before, upon the grand face of General Lee. He had been greatly fatigued by loss of sleep.