from their lips were "not loud, but deep." But we all swung down from
the cars, fell in, and marched back to and on board the "David Tatum,"
and were back at the wharf in St. Louis by next morning. We stacked
arms on the levee, and the next morning, November 7th, left St. Louis
on the steamer "Jennie Brown," headed down stream. So here we were
again on the broad Mississippi, duplicating our beginning of March,
1862, and once more bound for "Dixie's Land." By this time we had
become philosophical and indifferent in regard to the ups and downs of
our career. If we had been ordered some night to be ready the next
morning to start to California or Maine, the order would have been
treated with absolute composure, and after a few careless or sarcastic
remarks, we would have turned over and been asleep again in about a
minute. We had made up our minds that we were out to see the war
through, and were determined in our conviction that we were going to
win in the end.

Election day, November 8th, was densely foggy, so much so that the
captain of our steamboat thought it not prudent to proceed, so the boat
tied up that day and night at the little town of Wittenburg, on the
Missouri shore. Mainly to pass away the time, the officers concluded to
hold a "mock" regimental presidential election. The most of the line
officers were Democrats, and were supporting Gen. McClellan for
President in opposition to Mr. Lincoln, and they were quite confident
that a majority of the regiment favored McClellan, so they were much in
favor of holding an election. An election board was chosen, fairly
divided between the supporters of the respective candidates, and the
voting began. As our votes wouldn't count in the official result, every
soldier, regardless of age, was allowed to vote. But at this time I was
a sure-enough legal voter, having attained my twenty-first year on the
16th of the preceding September. You may rest assured that I voted for
"Uncle Abe" good and strong. When the votes were counted, to the
astonishment of nearly all of us, Mr. Lincoln was found to have sixteen
majority. As the regiment was largely Democratic when it left Illinois
in February, 1862, this vote showed that the political opinions of the
rank and file had, in the meantime, undergone a decided change.

We left Wittenburg on the forenoon of the 9th, but owing to the foggy
conditions our progress was very slow. We reached Cairo on the 10th,
and from there proceeded up