rleston Harbor was fired upon. Battalion
after battalion of the state militia were being hurried away south for the
protection of the Capitol. It thus became more and more apparent that
there was to be war, and the all-important question from the northern
viewpoint was, the preservation of the Union. One Sunday in the month of
June I went home to visit my family, I being at the time at work away from
home, and while there, quietly asked my mother what she would say if I
should enlist. Well, that question produced a shock, and was not answered
as quietly as it was asked. I was told I could not enlist without her
consent, which she should not give, and I was heartily laughed at by my
brothers and sisters. However, when it became known that a company was
being recruited at Barre, I went quietly over there and enlisted, then I
went home and told the family what I had done. There was a rumpus, of
course, but it passed off, and after a few days, hearing nothing from the
company, I decided to go back to work again and await developments. On the
22d I learned that the company was going into camp at Worcester the next
day. I was on hand and went along.

A number of stage-coaches were provided to take us to Worcester. It was an
interesting and picturesque ride of a little more than twenty miles.
Arriving in Worcester early in the afternoon, we went to the Agricultural
Fair Grounds, which had been converted into a campground and named Camp
Lincoln from Levi Lincoln, the first mayor of Worcester and a Governor of
Massachusetts, and set to work putting up tents and forming a company
street. Sleeping in tents, drilling and doing guard duty seemed strange at
first, and was a good deal of a change from the duties of a farmer's boy,
but it was interesting to be among a lot of live young men who were
brimful of enthusiasm, patriotism and fun.

When I joined the company at Barre, I was surprised to discover a number
of Dana boys there: Henry Billings, Henry Haskins, German Lagara, Gil
Warner and Harding Witt. Harding Witt and I had been schoolmates and good
friends for a number of years, so I was especially glad to find Harding
there. Reveille was sounded at five o'clock. Most of the boys did not find
it difficult to get up at that time but a few of those boys made the
greatest ado about getting up on the minute. They were very likely boys
who had always been called by loving mothers and had been called two or
three times every morning. A