his youth when he
showed himself was only equalled by the laughter with which we saluted
the first man we saw carrying an umbrella!

At 3 P.M., we reached Elizabethport where we embarked in a steamer
which was in waiting. Landed at the Battery and proceeded directly to
the Armory where we were dismissed.

In the foregoing narrative I have not attempted to conceal or underrate
our eagerness to get home. It is a feeling common to all soldiers when
their term of service is drawing toward its close, and distant be the
day when camp-life shall have such attractions for the American citizen
as to make him indifferent to it. But now that our desire to see the
familiar faces and renew the associations of our daily life was
fulfilled, we felt a willingness to respond again to a similar call
upon our patriotism, even though it were certain that similar
sufferings were in store for us. The service we had rendered the
government we knew to be honorable and valuable, and we rejoiced in
having so rendered it as not to be ashamed to keep its memory green.
And thereunto I would cherish every memento. The knapsack and
haversack, torn, musty and rusty; the battered canteen; the belt and
cartridge pouch; the woolen and rubber blankets, most indispensable of
equipments;--these shall not be thrown aside among the rubbish, but
cherished with an ever-growing affection. Nor let me forget my shelter
tent. Ah that painful roll! with which I toiled, day after day, over
the worst roads, enduring the tormenting burden for the sake of the
rosy hope that at the end of the march it would repay me and perhaps
some wretched comrade beside, by its warm protection; and not having
despairingly thrown it away in those mountains of our sorrow I do now
and shall henceforth cherish it as among sacred recollections. Set up
in some quiet retreat of my garden, it may in after years serve to keep
alive the waning fires of patriotism, as beneath it will be rehearsed
the story of Gettysburg, never to be forgotten while the love of
glorious deeds remains among men, with that episode of the Great Battle
which the New York Militia enacted, insignificant only when compared
with the grandeur of the main story.

APPENDIX.

RESUME OF THE CAMPAIGN.

_Tuesday, June 16th, 1863._--23d Reg. received marching orders.

_Wednesday, 17th._--Ready; waiting for transportation.

_Thursday, 18th._--Embarked early in the day. Weather pleasant.

_Friday, 19th._--Arriv