was subsidiary to that thing of wonderful
sacredness--"the regiment." They felt like wanderers who had been
away for years, and were now returning to their proper home, friends,
associations and vocation. Once more under the Flag life would become
again what it should be, with proper objects of daily interest and the
satisfactory performance of every-day duties. They really belonged
in the regiment, and everywhere else were interlopers, sojourners,
strangers in a strange land. They now sat together and talked of the
regiment as they had formerly sat around the campfire with the other
boys and talked of their far-away homes, their fathers and mothers,
brothers and sisters and sweethearts.

They had last seen their regiment in the fierce charge from the crest
of Snodgrass Hill. The burning questions were who had survived that
terrible day? Who had been so badly wounded as to lose his place on
the rolls? Who commanded the regiment and the companies? Who filled the
non-commissioned offices? What voices that once rang out in command on
the drill-ground, in camp and battle, were now silent, and whose would
be lifted instead? "I'm af eared the old rijimint will never fight agin
as it did at Stone River and Chickamauga," said Si mournfully. "Too many
good men gone what made the rijimint what it is."

"Well, I don't know about that," said Shorty more hopefully. "They got
two mighty good non-commish when they promoted me and you. If they done
as well in the rest o' the promotions, the rijimint is all right. Lord
knows I'd willingly give up my stripes to poor Jim Sanders, if he could
come back; but I guess I kin yank around a squad as well as he done.
This infant class that we're takin' down there ain't up to some o' the
boys that've turned up their toes, but they average mighty well, and
after we git some o' the coltishness drilled out o' 'em they'll be a
credit to the rijimint."

The train finally halted on a side-track in the outskirts of
Chattanooga, under the gigantic shadow of Lookout Mountain, and in the
midst of an ocean of turmoiling activity that made the eyes ache to
look upon it, and awed every one, even Si and Shorty, with a sense
of incomprehensible immensity. As far as they could see, in every
direction, were camps, forts, intrenchments, flags, hordes of men,
trains of wagons, herds of cattle, innumerable horses, countless mules,
mountains of boxes, barrels and bales. Immediately around them was a
wilderness of