l of Camp Sprague ginger-bread,
for lunch, and some good friend of the company, I never knew who,
furnished us with a barrel of "conversation water" to wash it down
with. We finished our work at 5 A. M., and marched out to camp, where
we found a nice breakfast awaiting us. We resumed camp duties at
once. Although we had been on a ten days' tramp, and had made one of
the longest marches that had up to that time been made, in one day,
by any troops, and had not during the whole time been over-stocked
with rations, all the boys were in good condition and in readiness
for any duty required of them.

Saturday June 22d, at 3 A. M., the camp was aroused by the beating of
drums, and for a few minutes all was excitement, until it was
announced that the occasion of the alarm was the arrival at our camp
of the 2d Rhode Island regiment, via Washington, which place they had
reached a few hours previous, and were waiting outside to allow us
time to form our regiment so as to receive them in true military
style, which was done a few minutes later, and K Company, Captain
Charles W. Turner, our company asked to breakfast with us that
morning. The 2d Regiment went into camp in tents in a shady grove
adjoining us, and as long as we remained in Washington, both
regiments mounted guard and had dress parade together every day. Many
officers of the Second had seen service in our regiment previous to
the formation of theirs, and we were intimately acquainted with many
of its men, particularly those from Newport; and the men of our
company will always look back with a great deal of pleasure to those
days in the summer of '61, when the men of the two regiments passed
so many pleasant hours in each others' society. The associations
formed at that time, and later on in the war, between soldiers, were
fraternal in their character, and to this day the same feeling exists
among members of the Grand Army of the Republic, and will continue as
long as the men that were associated with us shall live.

June 28th, the 1st and 2d Regiments, with the band of each, and the
two Rhode Island light batteries, made a parade in the city of
Washington, marching up through Pennsylvania Avenue to the White
House, and counter-marching and passing in review before the
President and other notables, among whom was the venerable General
Winfield Scott, then so aged and feeble as to be unable to stand,
sitting in a chair as the troops moved past. The parade was a grand