individualize brigades, divisions, army
corps. It is the war in field, woods, underbrush, picket-post,
skirmish-line, camp, march, bivouac. During 1864 no memorandum was kept,
and a diary kept during the spring of 1865 was lost, within a year after
the close of the war. Hence I have depended on memory alone, aided in
fixing dates, etc., by reference to written works. Beyond this, the
histories consulted were of little assistance, as their record of events
sometimes differed materially from my recollection of them. In such
cases I tell my own story, as the object is to record these things as
they appeared to me.

In recording events of which I was not myself a witness, I give the
story as heard from the lips of comrades. Such portions are easily
discernible in the body of the narrative. You can have them for what
they are worth.

"I can not tell how the truth may be,
I tell the tale as 'twas told to me."

IN THE RANKS.

CHAPTER I.

"WAR!"

It is a little word. A child may pronounce it; but what word that ever
fell from human lips has a meaning full of such intensity of horror as
this little word? At its sound there rises up a grim vision of "confused
noise and garments rolled in blood." April 12, 1861, cannon fired by
traitor hands, boomed out over Charleston harbor. The dire sound that
shook the air that Spring morning did not die away in reverberating
echoes from sea to shore, from island to headland. It rolled on through
all the land, over mountain and valley, moaning in every home, at every
fireside, "War! War! War!"

Are we a civilized people? What is civilization? Is it possible to
eliminate the tiger from human nature? Who would have dreamed that the
men of the North, busy with plowing and sowing, planning, contriving,
inventing, could prove themselves on a hundred battle-fields a fiercely
warlike people? The world looked on with wonder as they rushed eagerly
into the conflict, pouring out their blood like water and their wealth
without measure, for a sentiment, a principle, that may be summed up in
the one word--"nationality." "The great uprising" was not the movement
of a blind, unreasoning impulse. A fire had been smoldering in the North
for years. The first cannon shot, that hurtled around the old flag as it
floated over the walls of Fort Sumter shook down the barriers that
confined it, and the free winds of liberty fanned it to a devouring
flame.

The Yankee--let the name be