Fredericksburg, but of this I am not sure,--he was scared almost to
death. He was a mere boy, and when his regiment was ordered to the
front and the shot was lively around him, he would have run away if he
had dared. But a little distance off, he saw a man standing under the
lee of a tree and writing away as coolly as if he were standing at a
desk. The soldier asked who he was, and was told it was Carleton, of
the _Journal_. 'There he stood,' said the man, 'perfectly unconcerned,
and I felt easier every time I looked at him. Finally he finished and
went off to another place. But that was his reputation among the men
all through the war,--perfectly cool, and always at the front.'"

Carleton was able to withstand four years of mental strain and
physical exposure because he knew and put in practice the right laws
of life. His temperance in eating and drinking was habitual. Often
dependent with the private soldier, while on the march and in camp, on
raw pork and hardtack; helped out in emergencies with food and
victuals, by the quartermaster or his assistants; not infrequently
reaching the verge of starvation, he did not, when reaching city or
home, play the gourmand. He drank no intoxicating liquor, always
politely waving aside the social glass. He was true to his principles
of total abstinence which had been formed in boyhood. It would have
been easy for him to become intemperate, since in early boyhood he
acquired a fondness for liquors, through being allowed to drink what
might remain in the glass after his sick mother had partaken of her
tonic. He demonstrated that man has no necessity for alcoholic drinks,
however much he may enjoy them.

Only on one occasion was he known to taste strong liquor. In the
Wilderness, when in a company of officers on horseback, the
bloodcurdling Confederate yells were heard but a short distance off,
and it seemed as though our line had been broken and the day was lost
for the Union army. At that dark moment, one of the officers on
General Meade's staff produced a flask of brandy, and remarking--with
inherited English prejudice--that he would fortify his nerves with
"Dutch courage," to tide over the emergency, he quaffed, and then
handed the refreshment to his companion. In the momentary and
infectious need for stimulant of some sort, Mr. Coffin took a sip and
handed it on. Though himself having no need of and very rarely making
use of spirits, even medicinally, he was yet kindly charitab