en miles, with a portable bureau or what
you might call a knapsack on our backs, before one o'clock that day, to
the Centerville race course. We pitched our tents and made things as
comfortable as we could for the night as you must know it was quite
cold weather, it being the last of November. There is no place that
reveals the real character of a man so quickly and so clearly as a
shelter tent in an army on the field. All there is in him, be it noble
or base, strong or weak, is brought to the front by the peculiar
experiences of the soldier. The life of a soldier in camp is tedious
and wearisome, but when a regiment starts for the field under a
government not prepared for war (ours was not), the real trials of the
soldier begin. When our regiment arrived at the camp at Centerville,
after a march of ten miles, we found that no provision had been made
for us,--and it now being the last of November. In the small hours of
the morning Colonel Bissell drilled the regiment on a double quick
movement on the race course to warm us up. The regiment was ordered to
embark on November 29. The Twenty-fifth regiment was to have started on
Saturday when lo! just as we were drawn up in line preparatory to a
start, General Banks' orderly gallops up, bringing an order for
Companies C, D, F, and G to remain behind and go with the Twenty-sixth
Connecticut. Here was a pretty fix, for tents, baggage, and everything
had already gone. To add to our troubles up came one of the hardest
rainstorms, such as only Long Island can produce. As there was no other
place, we were compelled to quarter in the old barn which was later
turned into a guard house, where we slept on bare boards. Not a wisp of
straw had we to lie on, for it was so rainy we could not gather any.

On the evening of the fourth of December, we received marching orders,
and at about 8 o'clock, we were very glad to get away from this
forsaken place, which we did in a hurry. We arrived in Brooklyn about
12 o'clock that night and I assure you it was no easy matter to find a
place to stay till morning. It was a long cold December night. The men
got places wherever they could find them. I and several other comrades
stayed with a Doctor Green. We were up early in the morning and the
doctor wanted us all to stay and have breakfast with him, an invitation
which we accepted with thanks. I wrote a letter to my mother while
there.

On the morning of the fifth of December we embarked on the ste