Inside the hotel the lobby was full of officers in uniform, scanning the
yellow bulletin-boards, writing letters, chatting in groups; gray
veterans of horse, foot, and artillery; company officers in from Western
service--quiet young men with bronzed faces and keen eyes, like
Rivers's--renewing old friendships and swapping experiences on the
plains; subalterns down to the last graduating class from West Point
with slim waists, fresh faces, and nothing to swap yet but memories of
the old school on the Hudson. In there he saw Grafton again and
Lieutenant Sharpe, of the Tenth Colored Cavalry, whom he had seen in the
Bluegrass, and Rivers introduced him. He was surprised that Rivers,
though a Southerner, had so little feeling on the question of negro
soldiers; that many officers in the negro regiments were Southern; that
Southerners were preferred because they understood the black man, and,
for that reason, could better handle him. Sharpe presented both to his
father, Colonel Sharpe, of the infantry, who was taking credit to
himself, that, for the first time in his life, he allowed his band to
play "Dixie" in camp after the Southerners in Congress had risen up and
voted millions for the national defence. Colonel Sharpe spoke with some
bitterness and Crittenden wondered. He never dreamed that there was any
bitterness on the other side--why? How could a victor feel bitterness
for a fallen foe? It was the one word he heard or was to hear about the
old war from Federal or ex-Confederate. Indeed, he mistook a short,
stout, careless appointee, Major Billings, with his negro servant, his
Southern mustache and goatee and his pompous ways, for a genuine
Southerner, and the Major, though from Vermont, seemed pleased.