ABSTRACT
Ba was the eldest son of Francis Channing Barlow, who rose from serving as a volunteer in a New York regiment to holding the rank of major-general in the Civil War. His intelligence and fighting qualities led to his rocketing to the top. Ba attended Harvard College, graduating in the class of 1891. Already a connoisseur of the various forms of fleshpot, Ba was also something of an intellectual, without working hard enough to turn himself into a scholar. Ba had heard of the purist doctrine that martinis should be stirred and not shaken, lest the gin be bruised, but was skeptical of it, as he was of most doctrines, especially purist ones. Ba had much advice to offer on the conduct of relations between men and women, although another of his generalizations stated that no one took advice unless it coincided with what he was ready to do anyway, and then he did not need it.
