ther" in the hour of
trial. Consequently a few "roughs," or "toughs," or "bruisers," or
"scalawags," were introduced into the company. With what result? Just what
every intelligent man should have known at the outset. They were
absolutely good for nothing when we were in camp but to furnish the
company's quota for the guard-house, and when an emergency required their
services they were either drunk or in the hospital by reason of their
excesses. They were, indeed, "invincible in peace and invisible in war."
The best men at home proved the most serviceable in the field. And this I
believe to be true not only of our own company and regiment, but of all
the troops who entered the service of the country.

All soldiers have a regimental pride and affection. It would sound equally
as strange to hear a man not speak well of his mother, as to hear a
soldier not speak well of his regiment. The rebel General Hill tells of an
Irish soldier belonging to a New Orleans regiment whom he found after the
second day's battle at Gettysburg lying alone in the woods, his head
partly supported by a tree. He was shockingly injured. General Hill said
to him: "My poor fellow, you are badly hurt. What regiment do you belong
to?" He replied: "The Fifth Confederit, sir; and a dommed good regiment
it is." The answer, though almost ludicrous, well illustrates a soldier's
pride in his regiment.

That the Eleventh did not accomplish all that the men composing it
expected it would when it left Rhode Island is admitted. But that it did
its full duty in the obedience of every order, who will deny? As another
has so well and truthfully said in regard to the regiment, "it had not the
ordering of its own destiny. It went where it was ordered to go, and
performed the duty to which it was assigned, and left no stain to sully
the fair fame and honor of the State or country." While it is true that to
some regiments better opportunities were furnished to achieve distinction
and renown than to others, there is no reason to suppose that the Eleventh
Rhode Island would not have done equally as well under the same
circumstances.

I am not insensible to the fact that during the war, and for some time
after it was ended, a feeling was entertained by some of the men who first
went out in the three years' regiments that the patriotism of the nine
months' men was stimulated by the bounties which were offered. In Rhode
Island, so far as my knowledge extends, the largest