The Color Guard, A Corporal’s Notes, James Kendall Hosmer

April 3. —We are in camp this morning, about three miles south of Thibodeaux, at Terre Bonne, which we reached yesterday afternoon. The railroad from New Orleans to Brashear City is a few rods north of us, — a road which our forces hold, and along which, this forenoon some time, when the engines can get to it, the second brigade expects to take its first car-ride in Louisiana.

We shall carry home a much more favorable impression as to the resources and civilization of this State than we should have had if we had not passed through this country of the La Fourche. From Donaldsonville to Terre Bonne, a distance of nearly forty miles, the aspect of the country varies but little. It is thickly peopled; the plantations succeeding one another as do the farms in any populous agricultural region of the North.

Seldom does an army march under circumstances so delightful. The miles were not weary ones; for the same really remarkable conditions made our progress comparatively easy from first to last, — a bright sky and sun, but a cool northern breeze, and a road, for the most part, in perfect condition to receive the soldier’s foot-fall. On one side rose the slope of the Levee; ten or twelve feet high from the road, two or three from the water on the other side. When the column halted, we could run up the slope, then stoop to the cool bayou to drink, or to wash face, hands, and feet. On our right, as we marched, we passed, now houses of moderate size, bare of elegance — sometimes even squalid in appearance; now, again, mansions of comfortable look; and, not unfrequently, beautiful seats, set up high to preserve them from danger in case-of a crevasse, with colonnades ornamented tastefully with orange-groves and the glorious live-oak, with trees full of roses instead of bushes.

Plantation after plantation! Along the road were white palings, or often the pleasanter enclosure of a rose-tree hedge, with white roses all out, and the green of a richer depth than we know it. Sometimes the planter and his family looked out at us from behind a “protection ” posted before them on the gate, seated upon the broad portico under the wide roof, beneath wide-spreading awnings, with open doors and windows behind. Then, between house and hedge, these marvellous gardens! Tall trees overhung them; with vines, sometimes nearly as thick as the trunks, twining, supple as serpents, from root to topmost bough, — twining, hanging in loops, knotted into coils. Then, underneath, flowers white and delicate, adorned with dewy jewels, scented with odors incomparable; flowers uncouth and spiny; the cactus, not here exotic, but “to the manor born,” its gnarled and prickly stem thickly set with purple buds. The air would be pungent with sweetness as the column marched past.

Such tropic luxury of air and vegetation! These scents and zephyrs; the bird-songs we heard; the summer-blue of the heavens; the broad palm-leaves at the planter’s portico; these blossoms of crimson and saffron and white; this slow-moving air, so burdened, and laboring under its freights of perfume, — all these are such as Paul and Virginia knew; all these, and I suppose, too, the foil to all these, — the miasma of the swamp close at hand, and the poisonous serpent lurking there.

When the garden was passed, generally we came to a huge gate, upon and about which would be clustered the negro force of the whole estate, old and young. From this a road ran, down which, at the distance of a quarter of a mile perhaps, we could see the white chimneys of the sugar-mill; the village of negro cabins; then acres on acres of cane-field, stretching clear to the heavy forest on the verge of the horizon.

At noon of yesterday, we came to Thibodeaux. As we entered the village, the drums struck up. The footsore men forgot to hobble; the melting men forgot their heat. We were all straight and soldierly; for the march was nearly finished. The streets of the village were full of people, upon whom it became us to make an impression; and the sound of the drum and fife is a spur to the soul. We were dusty and sweaty; but I think we made a good appearance. The colonel was on his horse again; the day before, and to-day, he had walked more than half the route, giving his horse to tired privates: so the chaplain, who has carried a gun and knapsack, besides going on foot. We unfurled the two flags, and set them upright. The road, as we approached Thibodeaux, had been growing even more lovely; and now, in the village, the climax of beauty was reached.

To go from Baton Eouge to Thibodeaux is like changing from the outer petals to the heart of a fullblown rose. Baton Rouge, once fresh and pretty, is now curled up and withered by the heats of war; but the blossom grows fresher, and here in the centre is the reservoir of honey, — the place where the bee sucks. Each little cottage had its garden; every gable was embowered; every window and pilaster buried in vines; every garden gilt-edged with ripe oranges along the borders. Puffs of wind, like scented exquisites, sprang out over the blossoms, — the gayest sprites that ever were, — and, seizing for partners our two colors, — rather faded and dishevelled belles,—danced them up and down in a brisk measure. The streets of the village were full of its hybrid population. Very few jet-black ones there were, and not many thoroughly white, but throngs on throngs of mixed-blood, — from deep mulattoes, up through quadroon and octoroon, to fair boys and girls with complexion just made rich and vivid with a dash of the tiger-lily. Not a pleasant or creditable story is it, — this tale of corruptness which we can read in the faces of the population whenever we pass through a village, or scan a crowd of plantation-hands gathered on a fence or under a hedge to look at us as we pass.

March 31.—At Assumpçion (I guess at the spelling). Charming, — perfectly charming, — day, place, sensations. We have marched twelve or thirteen miles since nine o’clock this morning, through the sweetest of regions, with the sweetest of air. Now we pause for the night,—the landscape still the mild, verdant, level expanse which made me think of Holland at Donaldsonville, — the grand bayou, deep and swift, riding along above the heads of the people. Here and there, the current, eating into the bank, leaves only a mere spadeful between the rush of the stream and the plain below it. The army began its march this morning at half-past seven. Punctually at the time, we had cooked and eaten breakfast. Our knapsacks were to go in baggage-wagons,—we carrying only blankets, equipments, and weapons. Among our indispensables, however, a few of us carry certain new arrangements. At McGill’s suggestion, we have bought a coffee-pot, a frying-pan, and a kettle for boiling. Wivers carries the coffee-pot slung at his side: Sergeant Bivins carries the frying-pan strapped on his back, — handy, rather; for when the excellent sergeant, at a halt, under the hot noon, shall throw himself backward on the sod, as soldiers do, he shall broil himself in an appropriate dish. I have, strapped to my belt, the boiler; itscrocky bottom painting thunder-clouds on the blue of my right thigh, as it swings to and fro. It will hold two or three quarts, and is up to flour, meal, eggs, oysters, or any thing which shall come to the omniverous haversack of the campaigner.

We have been brigaded anew; being still in the second brigade of Grover’s division, but with the Twelfth Maine associated with us, instead of the Ninety-first New York. Col. Kimball, of the Twelfth Maine, is now our brigadier.

The conditions for marching to-day are excellent. Never did foot of military patriot press the broad sole of Uncle Sam’s army-shoe into road at once so softly yielding, yet so firmly resisting; and, for air, certain it is, that through scores and scores of leagues, in States openly or secretly secesh, — Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, — certain it is, that over all this distance, this 31st of March, a levée of atmosphere of equatorial fervor had been built up. But, lo! the currents of northern air broke through it in a perfect crevasse of coolness, inundating all these Louisiana lowlands with its refreshing tide; so that, although we marched fast, the drops of sweat were beaten back, and the locks of the soldier, not plastered to his forehead, danced in a jolly manner in the breeze of home.

I have seen this day what I have not seen before, — estates which come up to what I have imagined about the homes of princely planters, two or three of them. The first we came upon was on the opposite side of the bayou. I was marching, not in the road, but along the ridge of the Levee, whence I could overlook the long column, the sugar-fields, and the distant wood,—a wood as romantic in its dim blueness as if I looked at it, not through a league or so of space, but through time, and beheld the Forest of Ardennes or the Grove of Cicero by the Fibrenus. While thus marching, — the bayou a foot or two from my path on one side, the road six or eight feet down on the other, — I caught sight of thick shrubbery, a chenille embroidery of green tufting the bare level plain. Then came into view a towering roof, and the stately palings of an enclosure befitting a princely domain. As we came opposite, down a long avenue, the perspective led the eye within the open portal of a splendid mansion; from whose hall, ladies and children looked across at the marching army. Meantime, the air was full of sweet scents: for tropic plants, like Eastern princes, stretched forth their arms from the enclosure, and with odorous gifts flattered the passers-by; and a tree full of bell-shaped blossoms — the airy “campanile” of the garden showing rows on rows of little purple chimes — “tolled incense” to us. One or two domains like this I saw, and many more less splendid, yet which were neat and pretty.

Toward noon, it grew hotter again. The “crevasse” by which the north wind flowed in upon us was stopped up, and the hot, unfriendly air of the South had its own way with us. We were in light marching order; but the burden bore heavily down. I remembered how Don Fulano talked to John Brent on the ride to deliver Ellen Clitherœ.

“Courage, noble master! You ride me hard; but I have a great reservoir of strength here in my loins and limbs. Never fear, you can draw on me without danger.”

Something like that. I bestrode a more humble beast: “Shanks’s horse” we used to call it, when we were boys. He made no such fine speeches. In fact, sometimes I feared he might give it-up; but somehow the sinews and fibres always had a little more try in them.

The bands of the division are playing now at “tattoo.” They have been playing during the evening with great vigor, particularly one bass-drum. The drummer, I believe, had to fall out to-day, on account of his ponderous instrument; and to-night is wreaking vengeance upon it, until it bellows through the camps far and wide. Bivins, who sits just the other side of the candle from me, believes “the boys are killing pigs, and have hired the bands to play to drown the squealing.”

March 29. — This forenoon, we are encamped at Donaldsonville, — a point fifty or sixty miles below Baton Rouge, on the western bank of the great river. It is the pleasantest camp we have ever had. The neighborhood of this town, and the country along the bayou La Fourche, which here opens out of the Mississippi, is said to be the garden of Louisiana.

The landscape just about the camp here must be very like Holland. The tents are pitched in a perfectly level field, — stretching, without a fence, far and wide, with only here and there a tree. Along one side of the field runs the bayou, behind its Levee. The water now brims up nearly to the edge of this Levee, though on the land side there must be a slope of six or eight feet from the top of the bank to the surface of the land. If an opening were made in the Levee, our camp would be instantly drowned by the rush of waters. Sloops and schooners of considerable tonnage sail up and down the bayou, and one full-sized clipper-ship lies at anchor just opposite us. To see these craft, we are obliged to look up. The water-line of the bayou is about on a level with our eyes; so that the hulls and rigging of the vessels are in the air, over our heads. At the mouth of the bayou is a fort, with pointed angles, smoothly cut, and turfed with green. It is very regularly built, with ditch, counterscarp, bastion, and berme. This again, I imagine, is a feature which this landscape has in common with that of the Low Countries. Vauban himself might have built this little fort; and Marlborough and Villars would feel quite at home manœuvring here.

Of course, we have very little idea where we are going, or what we are to encounter; for we are the soldiers of a general who keeps his own counsel. In a day or two, we expect to march from here to Thibodeaux, and thence onward to Berwick Bay. We have left Baton Rouge, probably not to see it again during our term of service. We marched in the moonlight aboard the transport that was to bring us here, two or three nights ago. I lay on the upper deck, propped up by my knapsack, and took my farewell of the buildings on the Levee. I have taken my farewell of Ed.’s grave. I have done my best for it. The cross stands firm and straight at the head: the mound above it is high and smooth, and green with clover. The vine above, now full of blossoms, has snowed down upon the turf a whole deep drift of white petals; and sweet baby-buds, cradled among the whispering leaves and sprays, rock to and fro over it constantly in the wind of spring.

March 21. —We staid in the swamp through Monday forenoon. At noon came the order to pack up, which was done with thanksgivings; and we waded and paddled out to the road, just as the sun appeared once more through the clouds. We marched, for the distance of about a mile, through a lane running westward; coming, at last, to an elevated field on the river-bank, at the Montecino Bayou, — a pleasant, well-drained spot, — where we camped at once to dry and rest ourselves; the stacks of guns, as usual, running in a long line, with the shelter-tents behind them; the two flags, in their glazed cases, crossed on the middle stack, indicating the centre of the line. The powerful sun soon dried our outer clothing; and, content with that, at nightfall we lay down to sleep; willing enough to postpone, until another day, the drying of shirts and drawers and the contents of our knapsacks.

We had come to a very pretty spot, and in such contrast to the camp we had just abandoned! I remember, Ruskin says, somewhere, that a picture, and, I believe, a natural landscape, has a shut-up, stifled look, unless there is water in it. I have felt that, I think; and now it seemed as if we were free again, with our fine prospect southward down the broad river. To the east of the camp was a grove of young trees, hung about with tassels of moss, and heavy cordage of strange vines; the trees just leaving forth under the influence of the Southern spring. In the edge of this grove, at the bottom of a ravine, ran a little brook. From the trees we could gather moss and leaves to make our beds more soft, and in the brook we could bathe. Moreover, a few rods southward from the camp was a broad, deep bayou, approached by green, sloping banks, where we could swim as far and deep as we chose. It was luxury itself, Tuesday morning, to strip off our mouldy garments, and, while they lay sunning on the grass, wash the stiff muscles, and blistered, parboiled feet, in the brook, dappled darkly by the shadows of the boughs and leaves.

Our respite, however, was a short one. The night we arrived at this pleasant camp, the colonel passed down through the tents to see what our condition was. He stopped at Capt. Morton’s tent, which was close by ours; and the captain brought out a bottle of currant wine, just from home, calling me up to have a sip also.

The colonel spoke very feelingly of the discomfort to which we had been exposed, and added, “At any rate, now we shall have a rest for a day or two.” Tuesday forenoon, therefore, I paddled about in the brook at my leisure, feeling sure of ample time. At noon, however, the drum sounded once more; and the order came to pack every thing again, and fall in at once. Sudden orders had come, to march. This time, we were to go out to protect a heavy train of wagons, about to proceed out along the Port-Hudson road to gather the cotton stored everywhere in the planters’ barns. Our march was along the same road we had previously traversed, and with similar incidents, though at first with less excitement; for it was no new thing now. The regiment was footsore, jaded, and suffering for the want of sleep. Both my collar-bones turned peace-democrats; and in every cell, with an ache for a tongue, protested against a further prosecution of hostilities. We toiled along, however; at every plantation, as we passed, seeing mule-teams loaded with cotton, and quantities of the snowy product tumbling from the windows and doors of sheds and barns.

We marched out seven or eight miles before we halted. As we advanced, we began to hear reports of the enemy from negroes; and at length reached a plantation from which a rebel force had just retreated. The rebels were hardly out of sight as we came up, and we followed close after them down the road. At length, within about five miles of the batteries, we came to a halt, and encamped in the edge of a grove,—for the night, as we supposed. Many of the men were much fatigued, and sadly footsore. The march had been a hard one for me; for the sun, during the afternoon, was most oppressive: but I made a cup of coffee, and cooked a dish of meat on my plate, and felt better. The men, generally, threw themselves on the ground at once, under the trees. Bivins, however, went to bathe in a brook near; and I took my seat to watch the baggage. It had just grown dark, when word was passed along the line, in a low tone, to be up and off at once.

It was hard enough; but it would have been the height of imprudence — two isolated brigades as we were — to spend the night within so short a distance of a powerful army of the enemy, perfectly aware of our being in the neighborhood. The grove, therefore, gave up its sleepers. In five minutes, the line was moving out of the shadow into the road, and, under the starlight, marching silently and rapidly back.

I like a night-march: the air is more bracing, the roads less dusty, and there is far more scope for romance. In the afternoon, I had had a severe time; but the night-march home was an easy one. I could carry easily all my own baggage, though we were in heavy order; and occasionally spell the sergeant, who almost gave out with lameness, by shouldering the big flag. There was ample room for the play of fancy. The rebel scouts, no doubt, had already crept into the camp we had just abandoned, looking at the embers where we cooked our suppers to judge how long we had been gone; while the cavalry swept forward to occupy the road as we retired. The regiment, in general, however, suffered sadly. Many marched with bare, bleeding feet, and, toward the end of the route, sank to the ground with fainting limbs, to pass the night by the roadside. We reached our camp of the morning at midnight, — the colonel straight on his horse, sitting up in the starlight, at the entrance, to direct the column; his voice, as he gave the last orders, full of sympathy with his way-worn command. We only had strength to spread our rubber-blankets, and fling ourselves upon the ground.

Next morning, the regiment were a poor, languid crowd of hobbling cripples,—putting up shelter-tents with stiffened bones, crawling around fires to cook coffee, and fry, on their tin plates, pillaged meat and potatoes. During the whole forenoon, those who gave out the night before came straggling in. This chronicler was tired and stiff; but he made out to wash his shirt and himself, — two undertakings requiring some degree of resolution. At night, however, I own, I was used up. I felt feverish, and next morning dosed strongly with quinine, which put Niagara Falls into each ear. During that day, I was on the sick-list. The next day, the regiment was ordered back to Baton Rouge. With some mortification, I left the regiment to march; and, with several scores of used-up men, made the passage down on a steamer.

I write now in the old camp, under the magnolias (which has become home to us), ragged, dirty, contented, burnt like an Indian, unkempt, unshaven, but about ready now for another start. During the week, we have marched fifty miles, heavily weighted, through mud, dust, heat, and a deluge of rain. We were on the brink of an engagement, having driven the enemy into the Port-Hudson intrenchments, — following them to within easy rifle-range of the batteries. We find it was not the intention of the general to fight a battle, unless himself attacked. We simply made a demonstration in aid of the fleet, a portion of which succeeded in passing up the river.

March 18. — In camp on the Bayou Montecino, between Port Hudson and Baton Rouge. You may see the place on a large map of Louisiana, — a sudden bend in the river above Baton Rouge. On Lloyds’ military map, which we happen to have, the bend and the bayou are both plain.

Bivins and I have buttoned up our house over the furrows of an old cotton-field: it is open at both ends; but the evening air is so mild to-night, we can stand all that.

Our rubber blankets are spread on the damp ground. The point of a bayonet is stuck in the ground, and in the bayonet-socket is a candle which gives us light. The State flag of the regiment, its white silk covered from the weather, lies along the ridge-pole of the tent. From the ends of this hang our equipments, in as apple-pie order as circumstances will permit in a country where there are neither apples nor pie-crust. The cartridge-boxes are well loaded down with powder and ball; for rebs of the most truculent sort come down to within a mile or two of us, and we may hear the long-roll any minute.

To resume my diary. The Fifty-second had stopped for its dinner last Saturday noon. I lay, as I have written it, on my side, pencil in hand; then I snoozed; then I looked across the furrows, through the sweet, sunny, blossom-scented air, to the long line of the Ninety-first, their colors exactly opposite ours. Half a dozen pigs ran down between the regiments; a gauntlet, I believe, not one survived: and before night they were eaten with much gusto; for, during our stay at Baton Rouge, we have very rarely tasted fresh meat.

Boom, boom! — big guns from the river. We can hear, too, the cough of high-pressure transport steamers, and know now that the fleet are, at least, as near old Port Hudson as we are; and we are only four or five miles away. At length, “Fall in, men, at once!’ An aide has come galloping up to the colonel, who is on horseback in a moment. “We shall probably have sharp work before we come back.”—”Keep cool, and do not waste your fire.” So Capt. Morton and the rest give such caution to their men as is needful on the eve of battle. “Leave knapsacks here: the footsore men will guard them,”—poor Hines, and the like of him, whose feet these real secesh roads have beaten and bruised with true rebel violence.

How do we feel? We are going out to meet the enemy, we all fully believe, and so do our officers: and even staff-officers of the general, who are friendly to us, look pityingly after, as we march on; for they know, though we do not, that we are to be pushed up in front of the whole army, into close range of the cannon upon the fortress-walls. The Fifty-second is cool, and yet eager; and not a man, that can limp at all, wants to stay. For the last thing, “Load!” Open cartridge-box; tear the tough paper from the powder end, — there it goes down the barrel; and now the ball; half-cock, then cap the cone, and all is done. If I have to fire, it will be for the cause. Scruples, now, are mere squeamishness. Now, “By the right flank, forward!” Hardiker carries the white State-flag; the tall sergeant, the stars and stripes. Old flag, you are woven of no ordinary stuff! Rank and file and shoulder-straps, it is a sacred thing! It has for a warp, liberty; and for a woof, constitutional order; and is dyed deep in tints of love and justice. Between Hardiker and the sergeant marches Wilson, — a finelooking corporal, with a military face, eye, and figure; moustached, bearded, eager, — such a face as I have seen in Horace Vernet’s battle-pieces. A good marksman, too, is Wilson; for many years the terror of squirrels in the woods of E—. Prince and Claypole cover Hardiker and Wilson; while I march behind the sergeant, right in the folds of the great flag. Alongside, in the line of file-closers, go West, and lisping, light-haired Wiebel, the German; and, last, the ever sage, serene, and satisfactory Bias Dickinson.

I almost cheered when Bias came back to the color-guard (from which he has been absent for a time, funny fellow!) from the jury-room down at the Court House of Baton Rouge, whilom his headquarters. Did I not dine there once with him, on stewed pigeons? when Bias, a prime confiscator, had got hold of a hand-organ, with which, after dinner, he soothed and gratified his guest by grinding out tune after tune; assuaging the perturbed spirits of the muddy fellow from the camp, as if he were a Saul in all his purple, —an entertainment most gracefully bestowed, with sage, silent, and serene demeanor, and hand turning untiringly at the handle.

So we go out of the field into the road, in the centre of the long column, with banners waving, and, I hope, the true light of battle upon our faces, — soldiers in a noble cause, — farmer and mechanic, – merchant and preacher, shoulder to shoulder. “Boom!” go the faraway guns. We are moving rapidly to the front: so the other regiments and the stout battery-men and the yellow cavalry-men give way for us, cheering us on. Down a cross-road toward the river, a sweet south wind shaking white cloud-favors out of every window in heaven at us; the sun smiling God-speed, and the lady rose-bushes, from fence-corners like balconies, showing their blossom-handkerchiefs.

A sweet woodland by-road! We rush forward at double-quick. Ah, here is war indeed! — a colonel on the general’s staff, just wounded by the retreating rebel pickets, lying by the roadside. I catch a glimpse of him on an extemporized litter of rails, as he lies under the surgeon’s hands. We rush by, tramp, tramp, at the double-quick; and he pushes himself up a little with his hands, so that we can see his pale face, just wounded ahead here in the road where we are going.

Cautiously, boys! A few steps, and we stumble over the handsome horse of the wounded colonel, dead in the middle of the road, with eight bullets through him. There, too, is the bloody boot of his rider, hastily cut off after the wounding was accomplished. A company are detailed as flankers; and, as they go through the wood a few rods distant from the road, they hear the groans of other wounded men. They cannot go to them; for to stop would be to expose the whole flank of the column to danger.

Now we pass other dead horses belonging to cavalrymen, which were shot in the road by the retreating rebel pickets. At length, we reach a fork where is a regiment drawn up, and Gen. Grover sitting on horseback with his staff, — a light-haired man, with face sufficiently resolute, his beard cut in a peak, and wearing a cavalier hat. We halt only for a moment. The general’s pointing hand indicates the direction we are to take: so down we go through a wooded road, driving before us the enemy’s pickets; our flankers in the woods seeing them mount their horses and gallop off as we come within musket-range. Presently we go by their camps, where they have cut on trees some defiance or warning to us: “Beware, Yankee! this is a hard road to travel.”

By the side of the column rides an officer of engineers, who stops every now and then to note a by-path or prominent knoll, or draw a rough plan of the wood. The dust has hardly settled yet along the road from the tramp of their retreating infantry. We press on close behind, until at length the column halts close within the range of the Port-Hudson batteries.

It is now just after sunset. I hitch my cartridgebox a little off my shoulder for relief, and bathe my head and face in a roadside pool. At the head of the column, spy-glasses are being passed from hand to hand among the officers. What is it they and the skirmishers see to the northward and westward, from the bend in the road? If we camp here for the night, we rank and file will go forward to see for ourselves. They are the outer earthworks of the rebel stronghold. As the dusk deepens, the column turns, and back we go, —we fellows in the very heart of it; the crimson stripes of the standard leaping and flowing out above us like cur rents of arterial blood.

We fell back that Saturday night two or three miles, then camped in the woods. Later, a battery went forward to a position near that to which we advanced, and fired shells for a while toward the rebel intrenchments. Our blankets and baggage were four miles behind. We hung equipments and haversacks on the gun-stocks; and, wet with sweat, lay down in our clothes, without covering. Wilson and I laid rails on the ground; then made a sloping roof of rails overhead, which was some protection against the damp.

The eyelids shut together like a pair of scissor-blades, and cut the thread of consciousness; but, in the midst of my dreaming, crash after crash broke upon my ear like the chorus of doomsday. We all jumped to our posts; for we thought the hour of battle had come. I looked at my watch by the light of a few embers. It was half-past eleven. At the time, we were in complete ignorance of the events that were transpiring. We know now that it was the fleet just passing the batteries, and all this was the uproar of the bombardment. Through the trees to the westward arose the flashes, incessant, like the winking heat-lightning of a hot summer evening. Through the air rolled reports,—now isolated, now twenty combining in a grand crash, now a continuous roll of them, — a thundering rub-a-dub, as if the giants were going to storm heaven again, and were beating a reveille to summon every gnome and all the genii and each slumbering Titan to fall in for a charge. The centre of the regiment, the color-guard, rested in the road. The pickets, four or five rods off, could see the falling of bombs, the streams of comet-like rockets, and the outlines of the shore-batteries lit up by the cannon-flames. It went on, and we sat listening with our hands close at our guns. Then, at last, the heavens reddened high and far, with a fiercer and steadier glare, that moved slowly southward, crimsoning in turn the moss and old scars on the north, on the west, on the south-west, of the tree-trunks. Meantime came up the boom of cannon, slowly receding in the same direction. So we heard the swan-song of the stern old “Mississippi,” — abandoned, beaten with shot, ragged through her whole frame where shells had torn and burst. On that night, a freight of dead men were on her deck, and the bodies of drowned men floated about her hoary hull for retinue! Then came a crash, — a light making all bright, flung back from the burnished gun-stocks, from the pool by the roadside, revealing the watching soldiers and the slain steeds fallen headlong in the road in the midst of the camp. So passed the veteran ship through fire and earthquake-shock to an immortality in history.

Sunday morning came. We had expected confidently all through the night to be ordered into battle: when light broke, with the dawn, we expected to hear the shots of the advancing rebels. All was still, however. We made fires, and cooked our coffee and beef. I took out my portfolio from the pocket of my blouse, and wrote a sheet or two; then, finding a clean pool in the woods, I took off every thing, and had a bath. The whole forenoon wore away with no sign of activity. The general was giving us a rest before a very tough march. Toward noon, one of Grover’s aides came up with word to fall back. To fall back! — were we going to retreat, then? Back we go, over the same road as yesterday. As we pass the bridges, we see parties of men, and fuel prepared. “The enemy’s cavalry will soon be after us!” I hear a field-officer say. The bridges are to be burned as soon as we have crossed them. In an hour or two, we are back at the encampment of Saturday noon, passing, as we march, signs of a hasty retreat; among them, a baggage-wagon on fire. We sling our knapsacks where we left them, swallow a few mouthfuls, and are once more on the road.

We have found out now the loss of the Mississippi and the impression spreads that we have met with great disaster, and are retreating in disgrace. There is no elasticity now, or mirthfulness. It is hard work to carry the knapsacks, and the men are sullen. Retreating without firing a shot!

Yesterday we felt sure of a battle; but the enemy fell back before us. Now, why were we falling back before them? We halt, every half-hour or so; when every one is on his back in a moment. As I noticed the day before, the road becomes strewn with knapsacks and blankets; but fewer men fall out, for they fear capture by the enemy. In the middle of the afternoon, it begins to rain. I never knew it rain so hard: there was a general uncorking among the clouds. The road becomes a deep pudding, and the gutters are rivers. We are wet to the skin. I throw my left arm against my breast-pocket to shield (as much as I can) my portfolio, which has my precious paper and pencils. By great care, I partly succeed; but every thing else is soaked. Boots become filled with water that runs from the clothes into them. The army splashes on through the rain, dreary and disheartened. Some of the officers give up their horses to tired soldiers, and shoulder muskets.

At five o’clock we reach a field, where we are to encamp. Gen. Banks assigned it when he passed in the morning. Since then, creation has put on a new face; but we must obey orders. In we turn, therefore, into a swamp, to pass the most tedious night of our lives. A dreary Louisiana swamp! The space had been cleared, and was full of charred stumps and logs, half floating, half lying in the mud. There was a terrible exhibition of democratic licentiousness. The rain had been so violent, that the pools — the “lower ten million” — had become multiplied; had outvoted the little green patches of terra firma that held themselves higher; and, with small respect to the minority, were proceeding fast to reduce the whole thing to a lake. We waded and stumbled forward to the middle of this dreary quagmire. Could we stop here for the night? We had marched very rapidly ten or twelve miles, most of the way in heavy order; and were exhausted. The roads were almost impassable: moreover, the general had left orders for us to stay here. We had no choice.

Wet to the skin, I threw off my knapsack and equipments into the mud, too tired to hold them. We managed, as night fell, to get a fire started in a charred stump; then, through the evening (which was dark as pitch), we went stumbling about in the bog to find sticks for fuel, — fishing out of mud-holes such half-burnt branches and trunks as we could lift. Frequently the rain would pour in sheets; when the fire, in spite of all we could do, would dwindle down to a mere spark.

About ten o’clock, I managed to make a little coffee. Then putting my knapsack into the mud, in the highest and dryest spot I could find, drawing my two blankets about my shoulders, and my rubber havelock over my ears, I sat down for the night. As I sat on my knapsack, it settled down into the mud until it just kept me out of the pool. My boots sank into the mud half-way to the tops. I rested my elbows on my knees, and chewed the cud of misery. Once in a while, some one waded forth after wood. On every stump and log were figures wrapped up in rubber blankets, trying to sleep. I mistook Silloway, thus enveloped, for a charred stump, and began to haul him to the fire; when a feeble and dismal voice proceeded forth.

Nothing was ever more wretched; and, when morning came at last, — swimming up through the pouring heavens to us, —such a half-drowned, haggard, bedraggled set as the regiment was, horses and men! We had the consolation of thinking we had touched the bottom of misery, at any rate. Any lower deep there surely cannot be. Snakes and crabs, no proper food or drink, wet to the skin, the deadly vine weeping its “venomous dew” upon us, — there could be nothing farther down. Mildewed, frowzy, horrible!

Still there was a very fair amount of good-nature. One rather portly officer had tumbled off his log during the night into the mud, which made a great laugh. Poor Corporal Wright came to our fire in the morning.

“How are you now, old fellow?”

“Oh! gay and festive, — more than ‘How are you?’ It don’t express it” (delivered with a feeble and dismal smile).

There is spunk in the regiment yet. We have scarcely any thing to eat. Nobody wants to eat much of any thing; but the foragers go out.

This matter of foraging is a hard one. I have seen now what a scourge to a country an invading army is. We were turned loose. As I shall presently record, the Government, under our guns, collected a large amount of cotton; and we were suffered to kill cattle, pigs, and poultry. All this marauding went on ruthlessly and wastefully. We left the road behind us foul with the odor of decaying carcasses. Cattle were killed, a quarter or so taken out of them, and the remainder left to the buzzards. So with sheep and poultry. Pigs were bayoneted, sugar-houses plundered of sugar and molasses, private dwellings entered; and, if any resistance was offered by the owner, his arms were wrested from him, and he overmastered. To be sure, there can be no manner of doubt of the sympathy of all these people with the rebel cause. We saw nothing of any young white men, — only old men, negroes, and women left behind, by the young men when they entered the Confederate army. I have not heard that any were actually slain in these marauding expeditions, or that insult was offered to any white woman; but property was handled, destroyed, or taken, without scruple.

I took no part in any active foraging, though I own I was more than once a partaker in the booty. It was, in fact, our only way to live. Government-bread and poor bacon were really insufficient to support strength under our work and exposure. When Bias offered me some fine cutlets, Sunday morning, from a calf he had just killed, I took them without much reluctance; and so, when Sile Dibble brought in steaks almost by the armful, and canteens of molasses, and haversacks of sugar, I was glad, hungry and tired as I was, to take the share he offered me. If I did no active foraging, it was, perhaps, more due to want of enterprise, and because there were enough others to do it, than because my conscience stood in the way. Am I demoralized? But it was the only way to live. Our rations were insufficient, and the commissary-department seemed to expect we should find a good part of our food for ourselves. It is, indeed, sad; and there was enough that was pathetic. War is horrible, and this feature of plunder is one of its horrors.

All this had humorous features too. To see Bias knowingly and amiably dissect a stolen calf, was a cheerful sight; so, too, Sile Dibble, mounted on a lean horse which Gottlieb had stolen, careering across the lines with geese and chickens held by the legs, fluttering and screaming, in one fist, and a bag of meal in the other; so Pat O’Toole, our wild Irishman, tearing through the camp, after having shot eight cows, without his hat, screaming to the “bys to coom afther his coos afore thim spalpeens of batthery-men had tuck thim intirely.” These were humorous features; but there was more to grieve over than to laugh about, and I fear it will be thought to speak ill for our New-England men that they take so easily to this habit of “loot.”

March 14. — On my side, in a corn-field, about thirteen miles from Baton Rouge, on the Port-Hudson road, with Port Hudson from five to seven miles away. Off for war at last, as sure as we live. It is the noon halt. Grover’s division, far as I can see, lies in lines, one line behind another, in each about one regiment; arms all stacked, with the men behind; some sleeping, some eating, some inspecting feet becoming blistered. Last evening, we left our old camp in good earnest. We marched out half a mile to the camp of the Ninety-first New York, with which we are brigaded; then waited for the army to assemble; from street and path a stream of troops, coming like runnels into a larger stream; until at last Gen. Grover himself, with the red flag and white star of the fourth division, went to the head of the column. A furlong or so in front of us, young Col. van Zandt, our brigadier, took his station with the blue white and blue ensign of the second brigade. We are all in heavy order, each one of us δπλίτης; though, since the review of yesterday, essential things have undergone a wonderful diminution; an effective-looking crowd, though not exactly smooth and neat. We are soon on the point of starting. Our colonel comes riding back from the general, with the resolute, pleasant smile he usually wears, a little more expanded than common. The colonel whispers to Capt. Morton; whereat the captain catches the smile, and he comes back toward his company,— the color-company, you know. “Gen. Grover says the Fifty-second is the best .nine months’ regiment in the service.” A little butter of that sort will help hard fare and tough marching; that the general knows.

Ahead ride the cavalry, yellow trimmings about their collars, yellow welts about the seams of their jackets at the back, and stripes down the pantaloons. Artillery come up. Their trimmings are red; in fine order everybody; horses prancing, cannon polished, muskets in the finest order; an untried army, but of the finest material, and as well equipped, I suppose, as any country through all history has ever equipped her warriors. The march begins, out past the spots where we have stood on picket. I see that the fence-post, against which I leaned all one night, has gone to the coals. We come to two roads branching off from the one on which we are marching: one to Clinton, twenty-five or thirty miles away; the other to Port Hudson. This last road we take. Soon we are beyond the outmost picket-stations, and push forth into unknown regions.

The weather is grand. We are in a heavy magnolia forest: the sun’s rays, now nearly level (for it is late in the afternoon), cannot reach us. We go mile after mile. The road is just what it should be, not muddy, not dry enough to be dusty; but smooth and soft enough for the foot to feel it like a cushion, yet not so soft as to take the foot in too deep. It is just wide enough for the regiment to march comfortably by the flank, in sections four deep. Sometimes we go over a hill: then, far ahead and far behind, I can see the big column of infantry, a huge caterpillar eating its way through the woods, jointed along his back where the sections are separated, spiny as a caterpillar’s back is, with the hundreds of muskets sticking out at various angles. The night settles down, a night of stars; and from the westward, as the glow fades, rockets go darting up, signals from the fleet, out of sight, in the river, ascending like us, loaded with death against the great fortress. Shall we march all night? No one knows, not captain or colonel, only Gen. Grover apparently; but at eight o’clock, or about that, eight miles on our journey, comes the order to bivouac. A pause in the march, then a quarter of an hour of intermittent progress, then horsemen dimly seen in the starlight; the order to “file right,” and I follow the tall color-sergeant over the rails of a destroyed fence into a ridgy corn-field, across which the regiment advances in line, guiding on the centre as well as it can see, then halts; the Ninety-first thirty or forty paces in front, the Twenty-fourth Connecticut about the same distance behind. Stack arms, then camp for the night.

I go back from my place on the left of Co. A to Co. D, and shout through the dark for Bivins. We find a soft place among the furrows: two rubber blankets over a soft ridge make our mattress; then two woollen blankets over; and last the shelter-tents, not pitched, but on top by way of counterpane, to give a finish to the bed. Lie down now, boys, loaded pistol still at the belt, every arm where it can be caught in an instant; for Port Hudson may send out fellows to stir us up during the night. “Corporal Buffum, under the stump there, is your bedroom well aired?” Buffum thinks he shall make out not to suffocate. The night-wind blows over us, the stars shine as only Southern stars do, and in a few minutes fancy runs northward and homeward through a thousand dreams.

The morning comes at last. Is it D or B? The mind gradually gathers itself. Is it the camp by the river, or under the magnolias? Ah! now I have it, — the tall naked trees, the furrows bristling with dry stalks and partially covered with short grass, the army rising like a brimming colony of ants from the ground. Now, as I roll over, my pistol hits me in the ribs, and slap against my legs hits the heavily-weighted cartridge-box. It will make my thigh black and blue, I believe. I have slept as well as I ever did. No one knows exactly when we shall be ordered into line.

At any rate, the canteens must be filled: that is the first thing. Bivins and I draw cuts, and it falls to me: so Cyrus Stowell and I start off, hung round with a maze of white canteen-strings, as if somebody had thrown a net over us. We got back to camp just as the cry “to fall in” is being shouted by the first sergeants. The brigade files out of the corn-field, and is on the road again.

“The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and there is no new thing under the sun.” I think of that as two companies from the regiment are detailed as flankers. They go off into the woods, fifteen or twenty rods from the road on each side; and throughout the march we see these two lines guarding the main body against ambuscade, — through stumps and stalks, through old sugar-fields, plantation barn-yards, and wild swamps. I remember to have read, that just so Lord Percy, on the retreat from Concord, threw out flankers to protect his harassed party. Probably the children in the houses we are passing, fifty years from now, will tell how Banks went by to Port Hudson, as the old people along the Lexington road recall their great reminiscence.

When I was studying-up the old Assyrians once, I found out that the soldiers of Sennacherib were prepared against the Jewish horsemen with almost the same tactics which the French were to employ against the Mameluke cavalry, ages after, in the same region. So Lord Clyde, in India, once circumvented an army of mutinous Sepoys with the same strategy, particular for particular, which the old Hebrew leader Joshua used against “the men of Ai,” in the days when the sun and moon stood still. I dare say, in spite of improvements, we look very much like these old soldiers of the past, as the features of our warfare are similar. In clothing and equipments, we are reduced to what is simply convenient and easy. The pattern of our garments and their quantity, the fashion of weapons and trappings, — every thing is fitted for convenient use. What is convenient now, was, no doubt, convenient a thousand years ago. Probably, after all, we do not look much unlike the spearmen of Nineveh, the legionaries of Rome, or the halberdiers of Alva, when they put off holiday things, and undertook the active work of war.

The morning deepens toward noon. Fewer soldiers now leave the line to forage among hen-roosts; and the plunder, collected in the cool of the morning, is thrown away as the sun begins to burn. Only the negroes, a half-dozen or so of whom go with each company, stick to their prizes of chickens and turkeys. The Fifty-second grow red, and sweat; and now, along the roadside, we begin to see — what, I believe, is always seen when an army is on the march — knapsacks, sometimes full and sometimes empty, blankets, shelter-tents, all the articles of a soldier’s kit, thrown away for relief. Occasionally we stop, when the stream of men rushes from the roadway to the grass at the side, and in a moment every man is flat on his back. It is a good way to rest, though a dirty one: the pack behind supports you at a comfortable incline. Sometimes you sit in the dust, sometimes in the dew: one is not over particular when each pore spouts hot perspiration like a perfect geyser. In one of these pauses, we hear cheering far behind us, that comes rolling nearer; when word passes from mouth to mouth, “The general, the general!” In a moment, a clatter of hoofs, and then past us sweeps the “iron leader,” at full gallop and bareheaded, with his staff behind him, on his way to the front of the column.

Men now begin to fall out. They lie panting by the roadside, in fence-corners, under bushes, with heads resting against logs — a sorrowful sight, though not so bad as if we were on a retreat, and a howling enemy were to pick them up instead of friendly baggage-wagons in the rear. Sometimes there is a momentary hitch as the column picks its way around a mud-hole. I find some relief then for my shoulders in stooping over, and hitching the weight of the pack on to my back. It is robbing Peter to pay Paul; but poor Paul has so much the hardest time, that Peter ought to be willing to give him a lift.

Fortunately, the day is very fine; a grand breeze comes blowing up behind us: it is sunny, but cool; and the vines from the roadside wave white roses at us as we go by, as if the hedges were in for the North, however it might be with the people who lived behind them. Thank fortune! so far as my body goes, it is a good one. Heavy, muscular fellows are pitching away their knapsacks, or lying swollen and panting by the roadside: but, in my case, there is no headache yet; heart works smoothly and healthily in the left side, and liver under the diaphragm; legs swing to and fro without a painful chord, and feet are fully up to their responsibilities.

True, it is hard. “Whenever the column halts, I am flat on my back, and in the dirt at once. If there is a pool near, I must dowse my hot head, and re-wet the handkerchief in my cap; but so it is with us all. It is a good thing, when all favors, to be big and imposing, like Corporal Green here, and the rest of our fine, grenadier-looking soldiers; but, for actual work, the little, light-weighted fellows are even with them.

We have come now some six or seven miles. The forenoon draws to its close: true as the needle to the pole, the belly turns dinnerward. The fence is down, here to the left; and the long column, filing into just such an old cornfield as we camped in the night before, rules it across with long, blue lines of soldiery at regular intervals, and proceeds to write it over with such confusion as some thousands of reckless, hungry men would be likely to make. Here it is, that, a dried herring or two and some hard-tack and cheese being promptly put away, the color-corporal, under the lee of the stacked arms of the guard, pitches off his traps, lies down under the folded colors, and writes.

March 13. —I have retreated to the outskirts of the camp this superb morning, and have mounted a stump, portfolio in hand, to record progress. I hope the general is not “up a stump” about his expedition; but here we still are. We have been under marching orders four or five days. The cause of the delay is said to be disagreement among the generals. It may or may not be that.

But impressive preparations have been made for some monster undertaking. Evenings, sometimes, I have gone with my hospital-pass down to the river-side to see Admiral Farragut’s fleet (capable, they say, of throwing four tons of iron a minute). The “Richmond” lies farthest up the stream, whose grim, dark broadside we have become so familiar with. Farther down is the “Mississippi,”—powerful, noble old frigate, which I remember being taken to see when I was a young child. She is a Cromwell among the fleet; never doing any thing but peaceful work all through early life on to middle age; then suddenly plunging into fiery warfare, and making an immortal name for herself. Stained and warty and wrinkled is her old hull, as was the face of Cromwell; moreover, painted a shade of gray, so that she looks hoary, —blistered from tropic exposures, scraped and scarred from ice-floes, but stanch yet to the keel, and perhaps the most reliable member of the squadron.

The “Hartford” lies below, whose battery I heard thunder at New Orleans. The “Essex ” is drawn close up in shore. I lean against the wheel of a powder-wagon, and look, at my leisure, at her formidable plating; her pipes rising from the hard shell like a pair of snail’s horns; the big guns showing their muzzles through the ports, like dogs that want to be petted. To her present fame, what new glory is she about to add? The mortar-vessels are stretched in a line below, and close to the Levee lies the trim gunboat “Kineo.”

It is late twilight now. I sit on the embankment, looking at the pale, yellow sky westward, between which and my sight intervene the masts and rigging of one of these mighty gladiators of the deep. She lies far enough distant to make it impossible for me to hear any sounds from her deck, except most faintly; but I can dimly see the back of the great eleven-inch Dahlgren above the bulwarks, — like a saurian crouching upon her deck, — and the watch on the forecastle, — a well-formed, square-shouldered sailor pacing to and fro. Twilight is deepening in the far heavens beyond, — a clear, pale space within a frame of clouds; just the back-ground upon which might be displayed such a heavenly sign as appeared to Constantine of old,—the flaming cross, the harbinger of victory. I see nothing but the bright evening-star, just over the head of the sailor on the forecastle.

Yesterday morning, we thought we were certainly off at last. Word came to be ready to fall in at nine o’clock. Every thing was prepared. I had my forty rounds in my cartridge-box, and twenty additional in my trousers-pocket. For the last, down came the shelter-tent. Bivins packed away his piece, and I mine; and, when the drum sounded, I was promptly with the color-guard. Bias Dickinson is once more at my shoulder. We thought we were off; but we were only to be reviewed. It was as brilliant as one can conceive. Two divisions, brigade beyond brigade; yet Austrian troops in white, or British troops in red, must be more brilliant. Our blue is but a dull hue; yet still ten thousand men together is a sight to behold, — in uniform, in regular formations, — lying long across a field, like wave behind wave, with a foam of bayonets lit up by sun’s rays cresting each.

Gen. Banks comes up with a multitudinous staff. Now is the time for splendid steeds, — coursers fitted for an Homeric chariot; the war-horse of Job, his neck clothed with thunder; arching necks, prancing limbs, fetlocks spurning the furrow; bays, blacks, and grays, prancing and rearing from well-filled bins (for each horse has had his nose in a government-crib). In full dress, in front of the whole, on his coal-black stallion, rides the general. The brigades, one behind another, see him from afar: the brigadiers bring swords to chin, then sweep the point through the air groundward; banners droop, drums (near and far away) roll a salute. The general removes his cap. He is splendid, — his staff behind him splendid, — glittering with bullion and lace, with buttons and steel. All is splendid; but the color-guard thinks it is tough work to look at a spectacle in heavy marching order.

Each half-hour puts a new pound into my knapsack; yet I feel like little Tom Brown when he goes to Rugby for the first time on the stage, riding at night, his legs dangling (too short to reach the support) and tingling in the cold. It hurts; but Tom finds a pleasure in enduring. It hurts me; but I find a kind of pleasure. Then, too, I have company enough in my misery; and do not care much, so long as the sergeant and Bias and Hardiker find it just as hard as I do.

Down the line, on a full canter, now come the general and his brilliant staff. See the bluff captains and commodores from the fleet! Bump, up and down! Winnowing the air may be graceful work for the wings of a swallow, but not for the elbows of a commodore. Trip goes a horse into a ditch, and an aide goes down. Down the front of the line, then behind. Then we must march by,—first Gen. Grover, commanding the division, in buff sash and yellow belt, with the division flag at his side, carried by an orderly, — red field, with a star of white; then the brigadier of the first brigade, with his flag (blue, white, and blue) behind him; then regiment behind regiment, drooping its “good-morning” to the general, in the dipping-colors, as the lines wheel and pass before him, receiving a wave of the cap in return, — horn and bugle, drum and fife, filling the air with glorious sound, —the great host with rhythmic foot-beat moving mightily onward. Now it is over. We march back to the old camp; and, for the first thing, reduce our baggage. We thought, before, we were peeled down to the last rind; but more still must go, or we shall never see Port Hudson. Most of the men resign woollen blankets: but I give up my overcoat; I can spare that best.

The other day I went to Edward’s grave, with a spade, to repair and re-turf the mound, which had sunk a little during the rainy weather. This week I have placed the cross, which is to stand at the head. It is simply of wood, painted white, with his name and office deeply carved into the horizontal bar; and, beneath, the date of his death. Of all the soldiers’ graves, none is so neat now, in its memorial, in its turf, or location, as his.

They write me, they hope I am still in the hospital; but I am not. There are plenty of invalid or convalescent soldiers, unfit for field-duty, who can tend the sick. I am well able to do soldier’s work. If it is God’s will, I shall some day go home. The time has come to the young men of this country, when the motto, “Death, or an honorable life,” tries more sharply the manhood of him who adopts it than once. Sometimes one can lead an honorable life, and run no risk. I could not be honorable without going into the army. The path of honor for me now is to go with the color-guard into the fire of the Port-Hudson batteries. I would have my life honorable, or go with Ed.

March 11, Wednesday. —I was sitting in the chaplain’s tent Sunday evening, complimenting him on his excellent sermon, which he had just preached in the sutler’s tent to a congregation of men sitting on molasses barrels, and boxes of almost every thing. Every moment, a bearded face was thrust in at the door with, —

“When does the mail come?” or, “When does it go?”

Presently in comes the sergeant-major. “Two items of news.”

Complimentary corporal becomes mute. Chaplain turns. Inquirer at the door, or rather flap, of the tent, listens attentively.

“First, the ‘Nashville’ is taken.” (Intelligence received with due patriotic joy.)

“Second, orders to march have come at last!”

We expect to march: but hours go by, days and nights go by; and now here it is Wednesday noon, and we are still at the old ground, —knapsacks packed, canteens filled, rations ready. Our shelter-tents came yesterday. They are simply pieces of cotton, about five feet square, with buttons and button-holes on the sides, so that they can be connected. We are expected to get the necessary stakes from some fence or forest, wherever we may be. Each soldier carries one of these squares of cotton cloth. Four of us expect to go together. At night we shall button up our house, and be comfortable.

Feb. 21. — Suspense, — suspense for ever. Every day we expect news of a movement; but it does not come. They are signalling now; they are signalling night and day from one of the half-ruined towers of the capitol, by flag and fire. The old tower is perfectly garrulous with the ships and the stations down the river. Scarcely an hour of the day goes by but I hear volleys of musketry, the cries of platoons of men as they charge, “the noise of the captains and the shouting;” for drill goes vigorously forward. The streets of the town are full of armed men.

The other day, I saw Nims’s Battery at drill. The cannons and caissons are all out. I pass in front of the muzzles as they are drawn up, — hard things to face. There, as usual, is the bugler, covered in front with broad bars of red, like St. Lawrence escaped from his broiling before his martyrdom was completed,—he is there; but to-day Capt. Nims does his own bugling. “Toot, toot,” a chain of notes, and away they all go on a gallop; “toot, toot,” now they halt and unlimber; “toot, toot,” off again, by the right flank, swords waving, harness jingling, horses kicking with excitement, — all done- to a little chain of clear bugle-notes. Prompt they are, as if those notes were linked on in some way to that great rattling battery; and strong enough to swing the whole affair right or left, horses, guns, and all; then jerk each man off his seat, as they come to a halt, and bring him up standing. Rather ungracious business, Capt. Nims, blowing your own trumpet; but you do it very well.

I write on the cluttered-up table, — the two blinds nailed together. Where once, for all I know, some sweet Southern belle sent glances through the slats, now the quinine mixture of Private Grimes (accidentally upset) strains through on to the floor.

In hospital-life I see the good and bad side of human nature. There are shirks, — but I believe I know one or two, — foul-mouthed often indeed, and altogether too rough, one would think, ever to be fledged out with angels’ plumage. They will go home from here (if they live) to a bed on the straw in a barn-loft, or to a cot in a shanty in the woods, where they are getting out timber for some saw-mill; but, in view of their substantial goodness, I know not why, some night, these surroundings should not “like a lily bloom,” as well as the chamber of Abou Ben Adhem, and an angel write them down, as ” those who love their fellow-men,” near the head of God’s list, thoroughly unsanctified though they seem, as judged by all conventional standards.