e,
and that lovely cousin was the first who came out of the door to greet
me, dressed in a--well, white swiss muslin--I reckon--and looking like
an angel, I felt glad that I had a clean face.

And after the rough life of camp, what a delicious pleasure it was to be
with the people I loved best on earth, and to see the fresh faces of my
girl friends, and the kind faces of our old friends and neighbors! I
cannot express how delightful it was to be at home--the joy of it sank
into my soul. Also, I might say, that at the wedding supper, I made a
brilliant reputation as an expert with a knife and fork, that lived in
the memory of my friends for a long time. My courage and endurance in
that cuisine commanded the wonder, and admiration, of the spectators. It
was good to have enough to eat once more. I had almost forgotten how it
felt--not to be hungry; and it was the more pleasant to note how much
pleasure it gave your friends to see you do it, and not have a lot of
hungry fellows sitting around with a wistful look in their eyes.

Well, I spent a few happy days with the dear home folks in the dear old
home. This was the home where I had lived all my life, in the sweetest
home life a boy ever had. Everything, and every person in and around it,
was associated with all the memories of a happy childhood and youth. It
was a home to love; a home to defend; a home to die for--the dearest
spot on earth to me. It was an inexpressible delight to be under its
roof--once more. I enjoyed it with all my heart for those _few short
days_--then, with what cheerfulness I could--hied me back to camp--to
rejoin my comrades, who were fighting to protect homes that were as dear
to them as this was to me.

I made another long drawn-out railroad trip, winding up with that same
old nineteen miles from Orange to the camp, and I got there all right,
and found the boys well and jolly, but still hungry. They went wild over
my graphic description of the wedding supper. The picture was very
trying to their feelings, because the original was so far out of reach.

=The Soldiers' Profession of Faith=

In this account of our life in that winter camp, it remains for me to
record the most important occurrence of all. About this time there came
into the life of the men of the Battery an experience more deeply
impressive, and of more vital consequence to them than anything that had
ever happened, or ever could happen in their whole life, as soldiers,
and as me