coffee; although at that early day it had not become so necessary to those heroes in embryo as it was a few years later. The experience of soldiers generally in that war, favored the use of coffee. It was food as well as drink. When a fellow was nearly fagged, on a severe march, the mention of coffee appeared to brace him, and a hand would slip into the haversack for a pinch, only to tide him along. A spoonful of coffee in a canteen of water lifted one comfortably over many a weary mile. To abolish the whisky ration was wise. To have taken away the coffee would have endangered the cause.

Coffee and the letters from home were two important auxiliary supports of the nation. Those letters were a power. Nothing went just right when the mail was delayed. Anticipation is a great word and the soldiers worked it for all it is worth; on all the various grades of the psychic thermometer from zero to fever heat. Ah, when fever heat was struck, the indication was reliably certain that she had "gone back on" her soldier lad.

Clean cattle cars were supplied at Philadelphia, but the sort in which Co. G traveled from Baltimore to Washington were fragrant of stable odors. The distance was little over forty miles, yet the entire night was consumed. That scheme of traveling nights and loafing around half dead during the daytime, was never explained. Some of the men had a suspicion that Col. Brown was fearful that he might lose some of his men if he changed cars in the night time, and so corralled them the same as other stock. However that might have been, in his regiment the most remarkable desertions were among the officers.

Co. G did not enlist to become deserters and the few of them who did desert were scarcely missed; and a halo of glory which hung over the heroic Co. G at the close of the war obscured, if it did not eliminate, all weak points. Orators and newspapers accorded them glory, the popular cry glorified them. Why not place the laurel crown right here?

September 30th was a beautiful day, but warm in Washington. Co. G jumped down from their cattle cars and were marched to cattle barracks near the capitol. There was plenty of space for camping, but no tents had been issued to them. Those barracks terraced up the hill, resembled barns, rough boarded and whitewashed. The lawmakers over in the huge marble building nearby, reclined upon soft cushions. The sons of their constituents, who had come down to settle a serious difference stirred up in that building, were marched into foul-smelling barracks because they were soldiers. It was too bad to treat American troops that way.

At those barracks the feeding place for soldiers at that time was abominable in filth and mussiness. Coffee was served in what the boys named swill-pails, with a coating of grease outside and inside. The cooks and waiters bore hands and faces that lacked for soap and water. Many a bold soldier boy, after a peep into the feeding room, retired to a convenient refreshment saloon and bought his meals. As for Co. G, they said little but thought much, resolving that a revelation should appear as the years moved along, and even thus it is recorded, long after those slip-shod cooks have ceased to slop, and longer since the boys have any use for them. And now the vindictiveness of Co. G is spent.

Unfortunately, before Co. G could be taken out of Washington some of its members had filled themselves with poor liquor. The same fellows had given trouble while en route from the North, and on various occasions suspicious looking bottles were taken from them by the officers and thrown from the train. More shame for Co. G, who were not fighting under the banner of King Alcohol.

In the middle of the day column was formed and the boys marched out on Pennsylvania Avenue. Numbers of small boys flanked the line bargaining for the task of carrying knapsacks—carts were there for the same purpose and a brisk bargaining ensued. It was indeed a comfortable way to carry a knapsack—transferred to a cart or to the back of a negro boy. Thus disburdened, marching was easier. The air was hot, the roads very dusty. Across Long Bridge they went, past Forts Runion and Albany, to an old camp known as Camp Chase, nearly one mile in rear of the Lee mansion, on Arlington Hights. Old A tents were there, pitched and ready for occupation, true, not as clean as desirable, but a shelter which a little labor of dusting and arranging greatly improved.

Routine is the term expressive of life in camp. The soldier of experience is a stranger to monotony—he is part of a machine. All the comforts and amusements he can get outside of the routine life, are luxuries to be dissipated at a word of command.

Co. G dropped into the routine of camp life with good grace. They threw down brush upon the sacred soil of Virginia, they filled their ticks with dried grass, then spreading their blankets, composed themselves for the sleep of innocence, their knapsacks as pillows affording support to the shoulders galled in carrying them. Oh, those knapsacks. Sleep on, brave; bulge out knapsack, you are to be reconciled shortly.

Suddenly their dreams were broken—the day had dawned. From near and far came the bugle blast and the rattle of fife and drum. Hungry mules took up the refrain in varying keys. The boys of G soon heard the voice of Orderly Moore, "Co. G, fall in for roll-call!"

Drilling with the guns was for the first time attempted at Camp Chase and sergeants with tactics in hand, were drilling squads of men in all directions. A few lessons were given in the manual of arms by an officer of the regular army. As for Co. G, they forged ahead slowly, gradually cultivating a liking for a gun and accoutrements. They were drilled in squads, company and battalion evolutions, and rushed in this and that direction for health's sake.

The innocent verdancy of the sons of Lenox was alike typical of all the companies. Officers made clumsy work with tactics and the colonel worked out his battalion evolutions quite gingerly. One day the regiment was marched nearly a half mile with arms at a shoulder, whereas they should have moved en route with arms at right shoulder-shift—a much more comfortable position.

The captain of Co. G at this time, was an emphatic, sharp spoken man, and sometimes his orders came red-hot and snapping. In one of the other companies the captain addressed his men as gentlemen,—"Gentlemen, attention to roll-call!" or, "Gentlemen, right dress, if you please!" Captain Beck, good man, had fitted himself, originally, for hotel keeping. Capt. Tuttle was a farmer. Beck's ways were very pleasant, but Tuttle's language and style were preferable even if he did embellish his orders occasionally, and surely he felt often provoked. For some men are always lagging behind, others never learn to handle a gun properly, and occasionally a man is found who never keeps step.

There were a few officers in the regiment who really used swear-words. Co. G was composed of a sterling set of mortals who knew very well that swearing was barred by Army Regulations, and Co. G knew better than to swear at an officer; yet, to swallow such bad treatment without mental comment, equally pungent, would have been unlike some of those sorely tried warriors.

But all this time Co. G men were bracing themselves for all emergencies. Physically, they were pretty hearty. They were learning to wash their clothing and sew on buttons and do a little patching, but they, as a rule were not supplied with Scriptural reading. So it came to pass that Gerrit Smith sent down bushels of small testaments to be distributed throughout the regiment as an inducement to the men to read the Scriptures. Into those beautiful knapsacks went Co. G's testaments. Alas, and alack, they were too generally allowed to remain there. A number of the boys could not read if they would, and more did not read, as they should. No evidence is at hand to prove that a man of Co. G ever caught a bullet in the testament carried in