onor of Bishop Thomas M. Clark, who had taken a great
interest in the raising and the organization of troops in Rhode Island.

Affairs went along more smoothly than could reasonably have been expected
from men just taken from the pursuits of civil life. Captain Reynolds,
with rare tact, won the confidence of all his men and officers. Section
and battery drills took place daily, in the morning, and the afternoons
were generally spent at standing gun drill.

On the ninth of July, while at section drill, a sad accident occurred, by
which Corporal Morse (Nathan T.) and private Bourne (William E.) lost
their lives, and private Freeman (Edward R.) was very seriously injured.
From some unaccountable cause the limber chest upon which they were
mounted exploded, almost instantly killing Morse and Bourne and severely
injuring Freeman. The remains of Morse and Bourne were escorted to the
depot by the company, and there was extended to them a marked tribute of
respect upon their arrival and burial at home.

On the sixteenth of July the battery left Camp Clark at half past one
o'clock in the morning, with the First and Second Rhode Island Regiments,
but it was broad daylight before the command got fairly away from the
vicinity of the camp. Under the lead of Colonel Ambrose E. Burnside, who
had command of the Second New Hampshire, Seventy-first New York, First and
Second Rhode Island Regiments and the battery, as a brigade, the company
marched over Long Bridge to a point about ten miles from Washington,
where the whole brigade bivouacked for the night. The next morning the
march was resumed at day-break, and Fairfax Court House was reached about
half past one in the afternoon. The battery was parked and the company
went into camp near the Court House, on the ground and near the residence
of a Mr. Stephenson, an English gentleman with a large and interesting
family, every member of which appeared to do their utmost to promote our
comfort. Early the next morning, Thursday the eighteenth, the advance
again began and continued with numerous delays until near night-fall, when
camp was established near Centreville, on the plantation of a Mr.
Utteback.

On the morning of Sunday the twenty-first the brigade broke camp and
commenced the march towards Manassas. The march was a tedious and lonely
one until daybreak. The morning broke as clear and lovely as any that ever
opened upon Virginia soil. In the early daylight it seemed to dawn upon