all idea of that. What would they do with a mere boy like you? Why, you'd be only a bill of expense to the Government. Dreadful thing to make me all this trouble!"

But I began to reason full stoutly with poor father. I reminded him, first of all, that I would not go without his consent; that in two years, and perhaps in less, I might be drafted and sent amongst men unknown to me, while here was a company commanded by my own school-teacher, and composed of acquaintances who would look after me; that I was unfit for study or work while this fever was on me, and so on; till I saw his resolution begin to give way, as he lit his pipe and walked down to the spring to think the matter over.

"If Harry is to go, father," mother says, "hadn't I better run up to the store and get some woollens, and we'll make the boy an outfit of shirts to-night yet?"

"Well—yes; I guess you had better do so."

But when he sees mother stepping past the gate on her way, he halts her with,—

"Stop! That boy can't go! I can't give him up!"

And shortly after, he tells her that she "had better be after getting that woollen stuff for shirts;" and again he stops her at the gate with,—

"Dreadful boy! Why will he make me all this trouble? I can not let my boy go!"

But at last, and somehow, mother gets off. The sewing-machine is going most of the night, and my thoughts are as busy as it is, until far into the morning, with all that is before me that I have never seen, and all that is behind me that I may never see again.

Let me pass over the trying good by the next morning, for Joe is ready with the carriage to take father and me to the station, and we are soon on the cars, steaming away toward the great camp, whither the company already has gone.

"See, Harry, there is your camp!" And looking out of the car-window, across the river, I catch, through the tall tree tops, as we rush along, glimpses of my first camp,—acres and acres of canvas, stretching away into the dim and dusty distance, occupied, as I shall soon find, by some ten or twenty thousand soldiers, coming and going continually, marching and countermarching, until they have ground the soil into the driest and deepest dust I ever saw.

I shall never forget my first impressions of camp life as father and I passed the sentry at the gate. They were anything but pleasant; and I could not but agree with the remark of my father, that "the life of a soldier must be a hard life indeed." For as we entered that great camp, I looked into an A tent, the front flap of which was thrown back, and saw enough to make me sick of the housekeeping of a soldier. There was nothing in that tent but dirt and disorder, pans and kettles, tin cups and cracker-boxes, forks and bayonet-scabbards, greasy pork and broken hard-tack in utter confusion, and over all and everywhere that insufferable dust. Afterward, when we got into the field, our camps in summer-time were models of cleanliness, and in winter models of comfort, as far, at least, as axe and broom could make them so; but this, the first camp I ever saw, was so abominable, that I have often wondered it did not frighten the fever out of me.

But once among the men of the company, all this was soon forgotten. We had supper,—hard-tack and soft bread, boiled pork and strong coffee (in tin cups),—fare that father thought "one could live on right well, I guess;" and then the boys came around and begged father to let me go; "they would take care of Harry; never you fear for that;" and so helped on my cause, that that night, about eleven o'clock, when we were in the railroad station together, on the way home, father said,—

"Now, Harry, my boy, you are not enlisted yet. I am going home on this train; you can go home with me now, or go with the boys. Which will you do?"

To which the answer came quickly enough,—too quickly and too eagerly, I have often since thought, for a father's heart to bear it well,—

"Papa, I'll go with the boys!"

"Well, then, good by, my boy! And may God bless you and bring you safely back to me again!"

The whistle blew "Off brakes!" the car-door closed on father, and I did not see him again for three long, long years!

Often and often as I have thought over these things since, I have never been able to come to any other conclusion than this: that it was the "war-fever" that carried me off, and that made poor father let me go. For that "war-fever" was a terrible malady in those days. Once you were taken with it, you had a very fire in the bones until your name was down on the enlistment-roll. There was Andy, for example, my schoolfellow, and afterward my messmate for three ever-memorable years. I have had no time to tell you how Andy came to be with us; but with us he surely was, notwithstanding he had so stoutly asserted his determination to quit thinking about the war and stick to his books.

He was on his way to school the very morning the company was leaving the village, with no idea of going along; but seeing this, that, and the other acquaintance in line, what did he do but run across the street to an undertaker's shop, cram his school-books through the broken window, take his place in line, and march off with the boys without so much as saying good by to the folks at home! And he did not see his Cæsar and Greek grammar again for three years.

CHAPTER II.
FIRST DAYS IN CAMP.

Our first camp was located on the outskirts of Harrisburg, Pa., and was called "Camp Curtin." It was so named in honor of Governor Andrew G. Curtin, the "War Governor" of the State of Pennsylvania, who was regarded by the soldiers of his State with a patriotic enthusiasm second only to that with which they, in common with all the troops of the Northern States, greeted the name of Abraham Lincoln.

Camp Curtin was not properly a camp of instruction. It was rather a mere rendezvous for the different companies which had been recruited in various parts of the State. Hither the volunteers came by hundreds and thousands for the purpose of being mustered into the service, uniformed and equipped, assigned to regiments, and shipped to the front as rapidly as possible. Only they who witnessed it can form any idea of the patriotic ardor, amounting often to a wild enthusiasm, with which volunteering went on in those days. Companies were often formed, and their muster-rolls filled, in a week, sometimes in a few days. The contagion of enlisting and "going to the war" was in the very atmosphere. You could scarcely accompany a friend to a way station on any of the main lines of travel, without seeing the future wearers of blue coats at the car-windows and on the platforms. Very frequently whole trains were filled with them, speeding away to the State capital as swift as steam could carry them. They poured into Harrisburg, company by company, usually in citizens' clothes, and marched out of the town a week or so later, regiment by regiment, all glorious in bright new uniforms and glistening bayonets, transformed in a few days from citizens into soldiers, and destined for deeds of high endeavor on many a bloody field.

Shortly after our arrival in camp, Andy and I went to town to purchase such articles as we supposed a soldier would be likely to need,—a gum-blanket, a journal, a combination knife, fork, and spoon, and so on to the end of the list. To our credit I have it to record that we turned a deaf ear to the solicitations of a certain dealer in cutlery who insisted on selling us each a revolver, and an ugly