ll; 1875, Geo. S. Merrill; 1876-77-78, Horace Binney
Sargent; 1879, J. G. B. Adams; 1880, John A. Hawes; 1881, Geo. W.
Creasey; 1882, Geo. H. Patch; 1883, Geo. S. Evans; 1884, John D.
Billings; 1885, John W. Hersey; 1886, Richard F. Tobin.

The Assistant Adjutant-Generals, to whose systematic work this
department has been so greatly indebted for its efficiency, have been
Thomas Sherwin, Henry B. Peirce, James F. Meech, and Alfred C. Munroe.

Having for eight years led in members and excellency all the departments
of the country, with its record of over $600,000, expended in its relief
work, with $120,000 now held for that purpose, with a membership of
nearly eighteen thousand, and possessing the only Soldiers Home in the
nation, established solely through its own efforts and still maintained
in its hands, the Grand Army of Massachusetts has a right to be proud of
its exemplification of the virtues of "Fraternity, Charity, and
Loyalty."

ON DETACHED SERVICE.

AN EPISODE OF THE CIVIL WAR.

BY CHARLES A. PATCH, MASS. VOLS.

Most sketches of battle-scenes, in their voluminous details of movements
and vivid descriptions of action, so completely hide the actual feelings
of the _men_ engaged that the inexperienced may be pardoned the thought,
that, having donned the insignia of a soldier, a man instantly becomes
filled with martial ardor, and eager to face the most withering fire of
musketry or artillery. But the reality is far different; very few men
are so constituted, or are so reckless of their lives, that they can
listen to the unearthly screech of the shell or the crash of solid shot,
mingled with the sickening thud of grape and bullets, without a shiver
of weakness creeping through their systems, and a helpless knocking of
their knees together. It is a military fact that lines of combatants as
they go into position are not made up of heroes, and regiments which won
renown in such scenes of carnage as Fredericksburg, or Gettysburg, or
the Wilderness, were composed of plain, quiet men, who were
faint-hearted and homesick when forming in front of flashing batteries
or heavy bodies of opposing troops. It was only when completely
involved _in_ the struggle, after the madness of excitement had overcome
the real man, that they proved themselves to be, what we now know them,
heroes. But it very often happened that troops were placed in positions
where neither glory nor honor could redound to them, however brave th