me, said, "One Hundred and Eleventh Rhode Island!" She then asked, "Is
that in North Carolina?" To assist her in locating "Little Rhody," I
remarked that Massachusetts was its nearest neighbor, presuming that all
southerners knew where the "bottled up" hero of Dutch Gap belonged when
at home. Having straightened out her geography, which seemed considerably
mixed, she then wanted to know what we came out there for. I told her we
came to fight for the Union. With considerable fire in her eye, and
vinegar in her tone, she replied, "They tell me you've come down here to
fight for the nasty niggers; and if I were a man, I would resist to the
death before _I_ would do such a thing!" Here the conversation was
suddenly interrupted by the order to "fall in," and I left the old lady
soliloquizing upon the causes which led to the war, and its probable
result to both North and South. Whether she had confounded Rhode Island
with Roanoke Island by reason of the similarity of names, or whether our
sudden appearance in front of her residence had caused her to lose her
reckoning generally, I am not sure. Possibly she was not up in geography.

We had our pastimes when in camp. While we were at Suffolk it was not an
uncommon thing just after supper to see the men of Companies I and K
(commonly known as the Young Men's Christian Association companies)
holding prayer-meetings in the open air and singing revival melodies at
the ends of their streets, while the men of the other companies, at the
ends of their streets, would be dancing to the music of a violin or banjo,
or singing songs of a less spiritual character than those of the
Y. M. C. A. companies, all having a good time in their way, and neither
infringing nor trespassing upon the rights of the others, although some of
the men in the regiment, I feel compelled to say, were not the embodiment
of all the Christian virtues.

While we were in winter quarters on Miner's Hill, the religiously inclined
men of the regiment erected a log chapel in which to hold services in the
evening and on Sundays. No church bell summoned them to worship, but a few
taps of the drum or a few notes from the bugle, or, better still, the
singing of some old, familiar hymn learned in boyhood in New England
homes, served as a "church call," and from every part of the camp the men
came to reverently worship the God of battles. I like good church music,
but believe me when I say that I would not exchange the memory o