get feed for the men; the Colonel accepted my tender. I went down to the city limits, pressed three wagons (those deep box-wagons in use in Baltimore) into service, drove to the Quartermaster's Department in South Gay Street, represented myself as Acting Quartermaster (which was a little out of "plumb" but excusable by the emergency) and drew three wagon loads of aerated bread and coffee, drove back to camp, turned the kettles up and had the men banqueting inside of two hours. Inefficiency was surely our Commissary's right name.

At this point I want to tell something about Aunt Mag, my "Star in the East," who has ever since guided me.

Union people and the Star Spangled Banner were not so plenty in Maryland. Not far from Fort Marshal I espied a cheerful looking house. In its yard from a flagstaff was unfurled our glorious emblem. That was the house of Aunt Mag. I fell in love with the premises, and very soon with its occupant. Later on I was stricken down with that dreadful army plague, typhoid fever, and I was very near to death. That house was my hospital, and Aunt Mag was my nurse. I lived, and so here we are after fifty years. Many friends have remarked, how romantic! but we say it is just love. If the "Over-ruling Hand" was not in it, it certainly has proven a fortunate "happen so" for our lives have so nicely matched in the "pinions" as to have needed no other lubrication than love for all these years.

The house referred to was the home of Thomas Booz (the father of Graham and Curtis). He was a real "19th of April" Union man; and on that eventful day he defended his premises with a gun. He was of the firm of Thos. Booz & Brother, shipbuilders; also he was a member of the Legislature, and was talked of for Governor. Their firm built the pontoons that McClellan used to recross the Potomac at Harper's Ferry in 1862, after Antietam; they also built one of the first turreted monitors (the Waxsaw), patterned after Ericsson's Monitor which fought the battle with the Merrimac.