over from his regiment to visit us. The enemy suddenly opened fire from his batteries away beyond the river. It was a common occurrence. There was no special danger; the regiments were not even formed in line; yet this veteran promptly took his leave. "You know," he said, "that when firing begins a man ought to be in his place in his own company." It was so always. With all their independence and contempt for conventionalities, the discipline prevailing in that brigade was really most rigid. They were not fond of reviews, and took no special pains to make a show on such occasions; but to see the splendid line they kept in that deadly charge on the Fredericksburg heights, when one of their small regiments lost over a hundred men in a few moments, was enough to bring tears of admiration from a soldier's eyes; and at Salem Heights, when at evening Stonewall Jackson's men, concentrated in overwhelming force, came down upon us in sudden, savage charge, and the brigade at our right was "smashed like a pitcher thrown against a rock," when every other hope seemed gone, these Yankees stood firm, with unbroken ranks, and saved the Sixth Corps from disaster.

These were the soldiers whose example became our chief teacher in the art of war. Greenhorns as we were, they received us kindly into their fellowship, and, while they criticised freely, they were ever ready to give us full meed of praise for anything we did well.

We were scarcely settled in our brigade camp before orders came which set the whole army in motion. From picturesque Hagerstown we marched toward the Potomac, and encamped for a few days in a grove of magnificent oaks. There was some musical talent of the popular sort in our regiment, and it had crystallised into a glee club whose free concerts about the camp-fires were the delight of the whole brigade and did much to make us pleasantly acquainted with our new friends. One of the men was an expert performer on the banjo, and he had brought his dearly beloved instrument with him. Poor fellow, he was more fit for the concert-room than for a soldier's life, and a few weeks afterward he succumbed to the toil of the march. He "straggled" and was gobbled, banjo and all, by the Confederate cavalry, and we saw him no more.

Reluctantly we left our pleasant camp under the oaks, and a short march brought us to the banks of the Potomac and in view of a pontoon bridge. That river was a Rubicon. On the other side of it lay the debatable land, the region of bloody battle, and the bridge which, like a dark line of fate lay across the water in the glow of twilight, seemed the final decision of our destiny. We had dreamed that we were to be employed in garrison duty to relieve older and more experienced troops. Now we knew that we must take our share, raw as we were, in the toil and peril of the coming campaign. Soldiers never know their destination on the march. Even the officers, unless they be corps or division commanders, are usually as much in the dark as the humblest privates, and the river, with its pontoon bridge was a revelation to our veteran friends as well as to ourselves. We listened to their comments with hushed attention. "Well, here we are once more; here is the river and there are the pontoons, and we are going over into Virginia again. The inhabitants of the land are all rebels, and yet the last time we were over there our generals were mighty tender toward them. No foraging was allowed, and we submitted tamely; we spared the inhabitants. But this time, may the gods do so to us and more also if we spare them!"

There was something of the Cromwellian spirit among these Yankees, and in spite of the provost guard, they made good their threat.

The crossing of that river in the morning marked a new stage in the making of the regiment. We entered upon our first real discipline, and it was that of the march. Our tramp through Maryland, which had seemed so severe, was really child's play. Now we were part of a great campaigning host, a mere unit in the moving mass in which we must perforce keep our place. The discipline of the march may seem very simple, and it is in fact, simpler in some ways than people suppose who have formed their ideas from what they have seen in city parades. The tactics of the march are elementary. The soldier must know how to keep his place in a column of fours; the regiment must be able instantly to form in line. That is about all. On the march there is no attempt at keeping step; there is far less apparent order than in a political parade. Each man carries his gun as he pleases, only so that he interferes with no one else. Yet, with loose order and apparent freedom there is really severest restraint. The ranks must be kept closed up; to lag, even when you are most weary is a fault; to drop out of your place and "straggle" is a crime. A man is but a cog in the wheels of a remorseless machine, and he must move with it. The march is an art which some otherwise well-drilled troops are slow in acquiring. A regiment of infantry is seldom allowed the road. When an army is moving through a hostile country, the roads are monopolised by the artillery and the supply and ammunition trains; foot soldiers must take to the fields, find a way over ploughed ground or meadow, through fences, through brush, through woods, across bridgeless streams. In spite of obstacles the column must press on keeping its formation intact, and keep closed up. This is no simple matter.

Battle is one trial of a soldier's quality; the march is another scarcely less severe. It tries endurance. Did you ever walk twenty miles in a day? It is not a long walk, and it may be delightful. But if you have had to carry even a light satchel or a fish-basket with your wading-boots, you know how the trifling load tells before the day is over; how you try it first in one position, then in another, and each seems worse than the last. Now suppose yourself loaded with knapsack containing your half of a shelter tent, your blanket, and a few other necessaries; haversack filled with three days' rations; cartridge-box with from forty to sixty rounds of ammunition; canteen of water, heavy musket and bayonet—fifty or sixty pounds in all. Your twenty miles will equal forty without the load; yes, more than that, even if you could walk at will and choose the easiest paths, which is precisely what the soldier cannot do. You must stumble over stony places, and push through briers, and wallow through swampy ground, or toil through soft fields; now and then you must wade a brook up to your knees or deeper, and for the next hour your shoes will weigh a pound more than they ought and gather mud and absorb gravel. Perhaps the regiment may take the high-road for a time, and the dust, beaten small and deep by preceding hoofs and wheels will enshroud you in a horrible cloud from which there is no escape, and penetrate every crevice of your clothing, and fill your eyes and ears and mouth and nostrils, and blind and choke you.

There is no martial music to cheer you on; only the monotonous command, "Close up, men!" You lose consciousness of your soul, you know only that you have a body. Even that seems not to belong to you, it seems a badly oiled machine, part of a greater machine. And, then, on hot days the thirst! Your canteen will soon be exhausted; you will look with longing eyes at every stagnant puddle, and when a brook is reached—I have then seen men break through all restraint and madly dash at the water in spite of the drawn swords of officers vainly struggling to keep the ranks whole. As the day wanes the weariness amounts to agony. Every bone aches, every nerve is unstrung; strong men lose their self-control, sometimes almost their manhood.

The moods of men on the march are a curious study. Perhaps early in the day the whole line will break into song, especially if the route happens to be through an inhabited town. The Maryland villages used to ring with