l see my wife an' my little chil'en once
more."

These sentences I noted down, as best I could, beside the glimmering
camp-fire last night. The same person was the hero of a singular little
_contre-temps_ at a funeral in the afternoon. It was our first
funeral. The man had died in hospital, and we had chosen a picturesque
burial-place above the river, near the old church, and beside a little
nameless cemetery, used by generations of slaves. It was a regular
military funeral, the coffin being draped with the American flag, the
escort marching behind, and three volleys fired over the grave. During
the services there was singing, the chaplain deaconing out the hymn in
their favorite way. This ended, he announced his text,--"This poor
man cried, and the Lord heard him, and delivered him out of all his
trouble." Instantly, to my great amazement, the cracked voice of the
chorister was uplifted, intoning the text, as if it were the first verse
of another hymn. So calmly was it done, so imperturbable were all the
black countenances, that I half began to conjecture that the chaplain
himself intended it for a hymn, though I could imagine no prospective
rhyme for _trouble_ unless it were approximated by _debbil_, which is,
indeed, a favorite reference, both with the men and with his Reverence.
But the chaplain, peacefully awaiting, gently repeated his text after
the chant, and to my great relief the old chorister waived all further
recitative, and let the funeral discourse proceed.

Their memories are a vast bewildered chaos of Jewish history and
biography; and most of the great events of the past, down to the period
of the American Revolution, they instinctively attribute to Moses.
There is a fine bold confidence in all their citations, however, and the
record never loses piquancy in their hands, though strict accuracy may
suffer. Thus, one of my captains, last Sunday, heard a colored exhorter
at Beaufort proclaim, "Paul may plant, _and may polish wid water_, but
it won't do," in which the sainted Apollos would hardly have recognized
himself.

Just now one of the soldiers came to me to say that he was about to
be married to a girl in Beaufort, and would I lend him a dollar and
seventy-five cents to buy the wedding outfit? It seemed as if matrimony
on such moderate terms ought to be encouraged in these days; and so I
responded to the appeal.

December 16.

To-day a young recruit appeared here, who had been the slave of Col