e people made us despise them. Nor should mention be
omitted of the benevolent visits of Harrisburg matrons to our hospital,
bearing to the invalid sympathy with timely comforts.[1]

[1] And here it seems no more than common gratitude to mention a
name, though to do so is to "break the custom" of this history.
Through all those days and nights of terror there was one house
in Harrisburg--and it is to be hoped many others, also--from
which the starry banner was ever kept flying. The noble lady of
this house solicited the privilege of receiving into her family
any of our men who might be taken seriously ill. Her generous
wish was complied with, and one of our number--how many others I
know not--owed, doubtless, to her kind nursery, the blessed
privilege of getting home to die in the bosom of his family. The
regiments ought not soon to forget the name of Mrs. Bailey.

It would be pleasant to linger around the doors of the tents in the
hush of a beautiful evening, when, the work of the day ended, a sort of
vesper service would be improvised, and melodies commemorative of love,
home, patriotism and human freedom sung; or a box, enticingly suggestive,
just received from home, would be opened, and its contents of various
dainties distributed with open-handed liberality to regale a score of
comrades. It would be pleasant to recall, incident by incident, the
evening meetings under the open sky for prayer, the affectionately
pleading and encouraging words of our gentle chaplain, the hymn of
trust and hope, the supplication of the volunteer whose lips were
touched with tender remembrance of loved ones far away, into whose
faces he might never look again. But important events await our
narrative and we must hurry forward.

While we were thus quietly encamped, our gallant comrades of the
Seventy-First and Eighth Regiments N.Y.S.N.G., whose places we had
taken on our arrival at Bridgeport Heights, were having an active and
arduous campaign at the front. On the evening of the 19th these two
regiments under command of Colonel Varian, of the Eighth, proceeded to
Shippensburg, "for the purpose," says Col. Varian in his report,
quoting from the orders he had received, "of holding the enemy in
check, should he advance; but under all circumstances to avoid an
engagement; but if pressed too hard, to retire slowly and harass him as
much as possible; the object being to give o