these sheets many moments are pleasantly spent, as their
columns are eagerly perused. Then, following hard on the track of the
news-boys, comes our adjutant's orderly or courier with a mail-bag full
of letters, precious mementos from the loved ones at home. These
messages are the best reminders we have of our home-life, especially
when they are brim-full, as is usually the case, with patriotic
sparkling, and with affection's purest libations. These letters have a
double influence; while they keep the memories of home more or less
bright within us, and at times so bright that as we read we can almost
see our mothers, wives, and sisters in their tender Christian solicitude
for us, they also stimulate us to greater improvements in the epistolary
art. Men who never wrote a letter in their lives before, are at it now;
those who cannot write at all, are either learning, or engage their
comrades to write for them, and the command is doing more writing in
one day than, I should judge, we used to do in a month, and, perhaps, a
year.

No sooner are the contents of the mail-bag distributed, and devoured by
the eager newsmongers, than active preparations are made for responding.
Some men carry pocket-inkstands and write with pens, but the majority
use pencils. Here you see one seated on a stump or fence, addressing his
"sweet-heart" or somebody else; another writes standing up against a
tree, while a third is lying flat on the ground. Thus either in the
tents or in the open air, scribbling is going on, and the return mail
will carry many sweet words to those who cannot be wholly forgotten. I
suppose in this way we are not only making, but writing history.
Camp-life then is not entirely monotonous.

THE BUGLE-CORPS.

Sights and sounds of interest may be seen and heard at almost every hour
of the day. The morning is ushered in with the shrill reveille, which
means awake and arise. This is well executed by our bugle-corps, which
Captain Duffie has organized, and is drilling thoroughly. All our
movements are now ordered by the bugle. By its blast we are called to
our breakfast, dinner and supper. Roll-call is sounded twice a day, and
the companies fall into line, when the first sergeants easily ascertain
whether every man is at his post of duty. The bugle calls the sick, and
sometimes those who feign to be, to the surgeon's quarters, and their
wants and woes are attended to. By the bugle we are summoned to
inspections, to camp-gua