After dark we returned to the fort, reaching it about midnight through rain and mud, wet, hungry and weary.

Sunday, 28th.—A day of animation in camp, and to the timid few one of excitement and alarm. The troops in the fort are drawn up in line of battle, and assigned positions at the breastworks, where arms are stacked. The now dangerous guard-duty on the parapets is performed with the usual alacrity and promptitude, some of us perhaps not realizing the near presence of the enemy. There is great activity on every hand to perfect the defences, and guard against sharpshooters. Squads of men are sent out to cut down trees and destroy whatever may afford cover to an enemy. A lady-resident sends up word that she does not wish to have the trees about her house cut down, as she intends to stay, and wants the trees to protect her against the shot. Our engineer, without arresting the destructive process, sends back his compliments and advises the unterrified female to remove herself and traps to the other side of the river as expeditiously as possible.

It is an animating sight to watch from the parapet all these various operations going on. The crackling of branches draws attention to yonder tree which comes tumbling to the ground with a crash—others follow rapidly and the axmen's blows resound on every side. On yonder knoll a company of mowers are rapidly leveling the tall wheat. Here inside the fort an artillery officer is drilling a squad in artillery firing: and there a gang of contrabands, now for the first time, very likely, receiving wages for their labor judging by the spirit they throw into their work, are putting the finishing touches on the ditch and parapet. Outside yonder a squad of men is tearing in pieces a twig hut which workmen have built for their tools. And so the final work of preparation goes on with great spirit, and is soon completed. There are still no signs of the approach of the enemy except what we observe about us in a sort of expectant air among the officers, and in the qui vive of the whole garrison. The skirmishers have all been driven in however, and we are liable at any moment to be startled by the roar of the enemy's artillery, opening an assault.

While affairs were thus culminating in the fort, an exciting spectacle was presented outside. For several days previously we had seen, whenever we went down to the river-side to bathe, or to draw water from the well, a stream of people with farm and household properties, coming in by the Carlisle and river roads, and pouring across the long bridge into Harrisburg. By day or night this living stream seemed never to cease. Men, women and children, white and black, some in carriages, some in wagons, some on horseback, some on foot, hurried along. Their horses and cattle they drove before them. A portion of household furniture—such evidently as could be hastily removed—went jolting along in heavy field wagons into which it had been hurriedly tumbled. Loads of hay and grain, of store goods, and of whatever property of house or field was thought to be in danger of appropriation or destruction by the rebels was taken with them. Some had come from beyond Mason and Dixon's line, as was evident from the color and style of their servants. Of the unmistakable genus "Contraband" there was a large assortment also. They came along in straggling companies, their personal goods and small stock of cabin wares usually tied up in bundles and slung upon a stick across the shoulder. In fact the whole valley was literally pouring itself out northward, and in wild confusion. If in that motley crowd of fugitives there was one brave heart worthy to enjoy the free institutions which the starry banner symbolizes, he must have hung his head in shame as he passed under the shadow of the fort whose protection he sought, where he himself should have been, one of ten thousand ready at command to be hurled against the invaders. Time enough had elapsed since the danger first threatened for the removal to a place of safety of the greater part of the property which the enemy most coveted, and the subsequent marshaling of the farmers for defensive battle. But relying on the hope of the enemy being turned back before he could reach them, they had consulted only the interests of the harvest, and had gone on "gathering into barns." Those were trying days, it is true, and much sympathy ought to be felt for the citizen taken thus at disadvantage; but the cry of alarm had been raised, the Governor had summoned the people to arms, the central government seemed helpless to defend Harrisburg except as it was defended indirectly by the army of the Potomac then covering Washington, and the only certain reliance for the safety of the valley was the hastily raised militia, chiefly from a neighboring State.

During that never-to-be-forgotten Sabbath day, so strangely "kept," there was no flurry among the garrison, judging by the men of the Twenty-Third, nor any fear shown at any time among those upon whose courage the fate of Harrisburg seemed likely to rest. While in that threatened city the chief authorities were staggering under the herculean work of organizing an unwilling or at least an indifferent people into a disciplined force capable of resistance, and of infusing into them somewhat of the patriotic zeal which shone so brightly in the conduct of their fellow-citizens of Pittsburg; while in that city there was feverish alarm on every hand, and families were ignominiously flying with their household goods, crowding the railway trains and the common highways in their eagerness to escape; while the State officers were sending off to Philadelphia the archives of the capital, and were themselves hastening or preparing to remove to the metropolis, which was to be the provisional capital on the fall of Harrisburg; while there existed on the opposite side of the Susquehanna these symptoms of alarm, there prevailed among our untried but trusted men, coupled with animated speculations concerning the enemy, the calmness of a summer evening. And this when it was evident to most that there was an enemy just outside our ramparts whose strength was supposed to be many times our own, and whose valor was renowned, waiting for the signal to be launched against us.

There may have been among the general officers of the militia a feeling of anxiety. Indeed it would be strange were it otherwise. But this anxiety was doubtless due to the novelty of their position, together with their sense of the solemn responsibility which a commander bears in the hour of battle—a sense undulled in them by familiarity with scenes of carnage. But among the men there was the repose of confidence and courage. Whether hastily called to the breastworks and formed into line, expecting, it may be, to see the enemy drawn up on the distant hills; or dismissed with orders not to leave our company parade, and to lose not an instant in "falling in" at the first tap of the "Assembly," as the signal for regimental muster is called, or at the more ominous and alarming sound of the "Long-Roll;" whether retiring to our tents for the night, ordered to sleep on our arms; or awakened suddenly by the sharp "Halt! Who goes there?" of the passing sentinel; there seemed to cover the camp of the Twenty-Third—and the same was probably true of every other camp in that menaced stronghold—a mantle of repose such as they feel who fear no evil. Nevertheless had an assault been made with one-half the force, say, which carried the works of Winchester a few weeks previously, and with the same impetuous valor, there can hardly be two opinions as to the result. We should have resisted bravely and hurled back the enemy, green though we were; but a resolute persistence of assault by so superior a force would have compelled us to fly. For though our position was naturally strong its defences appeared to the uninitiated to be wretchedly inadequate. The number of mounted pieces was only thirteen, nearly all of which were three-inch rifles, carrying about a ten-pound bolt, manned, in part at least, by a militia company, tyros in