DEFENDERS;" while underneath this was "ROANOKE, NEWBERN, FREDERICKSBURG,
BURNSIDE, and the NINTH ARMY CORPS."

After the sumptuous repast was ended, Colonel Browne stepped upon the
platform, and in a few appropriate and feeling remarks returned his
thanks to the citizens of Pittsburgh for their hospitality to the
soldiers of Rhode Island, and closed by proposing three cheers for our
benefactors, which were given with a roar that seemed almost to raise
the roof. We then marched out to make room for others that were waiting,
the remainder of our brigade being near by. One of the waiters, who, I
was informed, was the daughter of one of the first citizens of the city,
told me that this hall had not been closed night or day for more than a
week, and that every soldier who had passed through the city for a long
time had partaken of their bounty if he chose to do so. Nearly five
thousand had been fed during the past twelve hours, and still there was
an abundance.

At ten A. M. we took the cars for Cincinnati, which we reached
after a pleasant ride of about four hundred miles through the most
delightful section of country we had yet seen. We almost imagined
ourselves making one of "Perham's Grand Excursions to the West."
Everywhere along the route we met with tokens of welcome and
encouragement. White handkerchiefs fluttered from ten thousand fair
hands, while the stars and stripes were displayed "from cottage, hall
and tower," in great profusion. At Steubenville, Ohio, I should judge
the inhabitants were nearly all at the depot on our arrival, where they
greeted us with cheer upon cheer, besides innumerable expressions of
loyalty and good will. Five long trains of cars, containing the five
regiments of our brigade, kept within a short distance of each other
during this entire journey, and when the forward train stopped, the
others would come up within a few rods of each other, thus constituting
an almost unbroken train for about two miles. The impromptu foraging
parties that emerged from each of those trains whenever they came to a
brief halt, it is unnecessary to describe to veterans.

The brigade received a perfect ovation at Cincinnati. The streets were
crowded with the enthusiastic populace, many buildings were brilliantly
illuminated, and the entire conduct of the people proved most
conclusively that the Union sentiment here was dominant. While passing
along one of the streets our regiment was treated to a perfect sho