mount of daring deeds, but
it is seldom that he gains a tangible reward. He does all the fighting,
he performs all the drudgery, he is plundered by the sutler, he lives
on pork and hard-bread, but he gets none of the honors of a victory. As
Biglow says,--

'Lieutenants are the lowest grade that help pick up the coppers.'

I belonged to an artillery company. I joined this because somebody told
me I could ride. I wish I had that _somebody_ by the throat. The idea of
a man's _riding_ over the mountains of Western Virginia! I won't call it
ridiculous, for that's no name for it.

I will pass over the uninteresting part of the campaign, that of lying
in camp, as everybody now-a-days has ample opportunity to judge of camp
life, in the cities, and take the reader at once into 'active service,'
and show the hardships and trials, together with the fun (for soldiers
_do_ have their good times) of campaigning.

On the 29th day of May, 1861, we arrived at Parkersburgh, Va. It was my
first visit to the Old Dominion. We had been taught when youngsters at
school to regard Virginia as a sort of Holy Land, 'flowing with milk and
honey,' and the mother of all that is great and noble in the United
States, if not in the world. We were 'going South.'

It was at the close of a warm spring day that we landed there; the sun
was just sinking in the west as the boat rounded-to at the wharf. We
jumped ashore, and for the first time in our lives inhaled the 'sacred
atmosphere' of the so-called Southern Confederacy. All was bustle and
confusion; but we soon had our traps, _i.e._, guns, caissons and horses,
unloaded, and a little after dark were on the march. We proceeded a few
miles out of town, and at midnight halted, pitched our tents, stationed
guards, and all who were so fortunate as not to be detailed for duty
were soon sound asleep.

At Grafton, one hundred miles east of Parkersburgh, we were told there
was a party of some two thousand rebels. This then was the object of our
visit to Western Virginia, to drive these men east of the
mountains,--from whence most of them came,--and to protect the honor of
our flag in that portion of Virginia now known by the name of Kanawha.

At sunrise on the 30th, we marched to the depot of the north-western
branch of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and, after a hard half-day's
work in loading our guns, horses and wagons, stowed ourselves away in
cattle cars, and were once more ready for a start. As