to suggest that I enlist as a soldier. I
feel no desire to go to war, or to serve as a soldier in any way.
Possibly I should think differently if I knew anything about the war and
its causes."

"You are already a Confederate soldier," said Dr. Frost. "I think,
Frank," said Adjutant Haskell, "that if the causes of the war were
explained to your friend, he would be better prepared to agree to your
wishes. Suppose you take time to-morrow and give him light; I know he
must be full of curiosity."

"Right!" said the doctor; "I'll do it. Let him know what is going on.
Then he'll see that we are right. He'd have it to do, though, in
the end."

"Yes; but let him understand fully; then he'll be more cheerful; at any
rate, it can do no harm."

"But why should I be compelled to serve?" I asked.

"Jones, my dear fellow, you seem determined not to believe that you are
already a soldier," said the doctor.

"If I am a soldier, I belong somewhere," said I.

"Of course you do," said Adjutant Haskell; "and all that we propose is
to give you a home until you find where you belong; and the place we
propose for you is undoubtedly the best place we know of. Company H is a
fine body of men; since I am no longer in it I may say that they are
picked men; the most of them are gentlemen. Let me mention some good old
Carolina names--you will remember them, I think. Did you never hear the
name of Barnwell?"

"Yes, of course," I said; "I've been to Barnwell Court-House. I believe
this place--I mean Aiken--is in Barnwell district."

"Well, John G. Barnwell is the first lieutenant in Company H. Do you
know of the Rhetts?"

"Yes, the name is familiar as that of a prominent family."

"Grimke Rhett is a lieutenant in Company H. Then there are the Seabrooks
and the Hutsons, and Mackay, and the Bellots[6], and Stewart, and Bee,
and Fraser Miller, and many more who represent good old families. You
would speedily feel at home."

[6] The Bellots were of a French Huguenot family, which settled in
Abbeville, S.C. (in 1765?). The name gradually came to be pronounced
_Bellotte_. [ED.]

"Gentlemen," said I, "how I ever became a soldier I do not know. I am a
soldier in a cause that I do not understand."

"And you have done many other things that you could not now understand
if you were told of them," said the doctor.

"But, Jones," said the adjutant, "a man who has already been wounded in
the service of his country ought to be proud of it!"

"