General Dumont called. He is to-day commandant of the camp. The General is an eccentric genius, and has an inexhaustible fund of good stories. He uses the words "damned" and "bedamned" rather too often; but this adds, rather than detracts, from his popularity. He dispenses good whisky at his quarters very freely, and this has a tendency also to elevate him in the estimation of his subordinates.
General Mitchell never drinks and never swears. Occasionally he uses the words "confound it" in rather savage style; but further than this I have never heard him go. Mitchell is military; Dumont militia. The latter winks at the shortcomings of the soldier; the former does not.
SOURCE: John Beatty, The Citizen-soldier: Or, Memoirs of a Volunteer, pp. 96-7
