ur boys followed some distance, and then returned, relieving us
and allowing us to embark again for City Point. After the rebels had
retreated, I went outside the breastworks, and the sight that met my eyes
on every side would curdle the blood of stouter hearts than mine. It
appeared that Lee, with his cavalry, had surprised the pickets, and being
negroes, every one they captured they would hang up to a tree after they
were mutilated. I saw several with fingers cut off in order to obtain a
ring quickly, and many other sickening sights which tended to make me a
hardened soldier. I was having lots of experience, even before I had
really reached my regiment, and I tell you, the heroic ardor of my boyish
dream was beginning to ooze out of me quite fast. I began to think I was
not cut for a soldier.

Well, my first battle was over, my first experience before an enemy. The
first sound of musketry had died away, and we were again steaming towards
City Point to join our regiments. We arrived there the next night about
ten o'clock. There didn't seem to be any one in command of us or any one
to direct us. It was very dark on shore, but in the distance you could see
a glaring light above the horizon, as if there was a long building on
fire. But from the occasional sound of guns from that quarter, I made up
my mind it was the advance line of our army. It was Butler's command, and
our regiment, the Eighth Maine, must be there. The Eighth Maine, Company
H, was the regiment and company to which my brother belonged, and in which
I was enlisted. I started out across the fields in the direction of the
light--on, on I tramped, into ditches, through mires, over fences. The
farther I went the faster I went. I was so impatient I could not hold
myself to a walk; it was a dog-trot all the time. I was heedless of every
obstacle, till I began to near the front. I realized the danger by the
whizzing of shell, and the zip, zip of bullets. I found myself among lots
of soldiers, and how ragged and dirty the poor fellows looked. I asked the
first man I came to where the Eighth Maine was? He looked at me in perfect
astonishment. "This is the Eighth, what's left of it." I asked him if he
knew where my brother was--Charley Ulmer? "Oh, yes," he said, and pointing
to a little group of men, who were round a wee bit of a fire; "there he
is, don't you know him?"

I hesitated, for really I could hardly tell one from the other. He saw my
bewilderment, and took