here to report to him, according to orders.

"Oh, yes, colonel, that is right," replied the general. "How many men
have you?"

Receiving the colonel's answer, General Sumner said:

"I wish you had ten times as many, for we need you badly. Glad you are
here, colonel. Make yourselves as comfortable as you can for the rest of
the night, and I will assign you to your brigade in the morning."

Here was a cordial reception and hospitality galore. "Make yourselves
comfortable"--in Hotel "Dame Nature!" Well, we were all weary enough to
accept the hospitality. We turned into the adjacent field, "stacked
arms," and in a jiffy were rolled up in our blankets and sound asleep.
The mattresses supplied by Madame Nature were rather hard, but her rooms
were fresh and airy, and the ceilings studded with the stars of glory.
My last waking vision that night was a knowing wink from Jupiter and
Mars, as much as to say, "sleep sweetly, we are here."

The morning sun was well up before we got ourselves together the next
morning. The "reveille" had no terrors for us greenhorns then. We found
ourselves in the midst of a division of the bronzed old Army of the
Potomac veterans. They were swarming all over us, and how unmercifully
they did guy us! A regiment of tenderfeet was just taffy for those
fellows. Did our "Ma's know we were out?" "Get off those purty duds."
"Oh, you blue cherub!" etc., etc., at the same time accepting (?)
without a murmur all the tobacco and other camp rarities they could
reach.

We were soon visited by Brigadier-General Nathan Kimball, a swarthy,
grizzly-bearded old gentleman, with lots of fire and energy in his eyes.
He told the colonel our regiment had been assigned to his brigade. He
directed the colonel to get the regiment in line, as he had something to
say to the men, after which he would direct us where to join his troops.
General Kimball commanded a brigade which had achieved a great
reputation under McClellan in his West Virginia campaign, and it had
been named by him the "Gibraltar brigade." It had also been through the
Peninsular and Second Bull Run campaigns. It had comprised the Fourth
and Eighth Ohio, Fourteenth Indiana and Seventh West Virginia regiments,
all of which had been reduced by hard service to mere skeleton
regiments. The Fourth Ohio had become so small as to require its
withdrawal from the army for recuperation, and our regiment was to take
its place.

To step into the shoes of one of the