The moon, a crescent, now rests for a moment on the highest peak of the Cheat, and by its light suggests, rather than reveals, the outline of hill, valley, cove and mountain.
The boys are wide awake and merry. The fair weather has put new spirit in them all, and possibly the presence of the paymaster has contributed somewhat to the good feeling which prevails.
Hark! This from the company quarters:
"Her golden hair in ringlets fair;
Her eyes like diamonds shining;
Her slender waist, her carriage chaste,
Left me, poor soul, a pining.
But let the night be e'er so dark,
Or e'er so wet and rainy,
I will return safe back again
To the girl I left behind me."
From another quarter, in the rich brogue of the Celt, we have:
"Did you hear of the widow Malone,
Ohone!
Who lived in the town of Athlone,
Alone?
Oh! she melted the hearts
Of the swains in those parts;
So lovely the widow Malone,
Ohone!
So lovely the widow Malone."
10. Mr. Strong, the chaplain, has a prayer meeting in the adjoining tent. His prayers and exhortations fill me with an almost irresistible inclination to close my eyes and shut out the vanities, cares, and vexations of the world. Parson Strong is dull, but he is very industrious, and on secular days devotes his physical and mental powers to the work of tanning three sheepskins and a calf's hide. On every fair day he has the skins strung on a pole before his tent to get the sun. He combs the wool to get it clean, and takes especial delight in rubbing the hides to make them soft and pliable. I told the parson the other day that I could not have the utmost confidence in a shepherd who took so much pleasure in tanning hides.
While Parson Strong and a devoted few are singing the songs of Zion, the boys are having cotillion parties in other parts of the camp. On the parade ground of one company Willis is officiating as musician, and the gentlemen go through "honors to partners" and "circle all" with apparently as much pleasure as if their partners had pink cheeks, white slippers, and dresses looped up with rosettes.
There comes from the Chaplain's tent a sweet and solemn refrain:
"Perhaps He will admit my plea,
Perhaps will hear my prayer;
But if I perish I will pray,
And perish only there.
I can but perish if I go.
I am resolved to try.
For if I stay away I know
I must forever die."
While these old hymns are sounding in our ears, we are almost tempted to go, even if we do perish. Surely nothing has such power to make us forget earth and its round of troubles as these sweet old church songs, familiar from earliest childhood, and wrought into the most tender memories, until we come to regard them as a sort of sacred stream, on which some day our souls will float away happily to the better country.
12. The parson is in my tent doing his best to extract something solemn out of Willis' violin. Now he stumbles on a strain of "Sweet Home," then a scratch of "Lang Syne;" but the latter soon breaks its neck over "Old Hundred," and all three tunes finally mix up and merge into "I would not live alway, I ask not to stay," which, for the purpose of steadying his hand, the parson sings aloud. I look at him and affect surprise that a reverend gentleman should take any pleasure in so vain and wicked an instrument, and express a hope that the business of tanning skins has not utterly demoralized him.
Willis pretends to a taste in music far superior to that of the common "nigger." He plays a very fine thing, and when I ask what it is, replies: "Norma, an opera piece." Since the parson's exit he has been executing "Norma" with great spirit, and, so far as I am able to judge, with wonderful skill. I doubt not his thoughts are a thousand miles hence, among brown-skinned wenches, dressed in crimson robes, and decorated with ponderous ear-drops. In fact, "Norma" is good, and goes far to carry one out of the wilderness.
13. It is after tattoo. Parson Strong's prayer-meeting has been dismissed an hour, and the camp is as quiet as if deserted. The day has been a duplicate of yesterday, cold and windy. To-night the moon is sailing through a wilderness of clouds, now breaking out and throwing a mellow light over valley and mountain, then plunging into obscurity, and leaving all in thick darkness.
Major Keifer, Adjutant Mitchell, and Private Jerroloaman have been stretching their legs before my fire-place all the evening. The Adjutant being hopelessly in love, naturally enough gave the conversation a sentimental turn, and our thoughts have been wandering among the rosy years when our hearts throbbed under the gleam of one bright particular star (I mean one each), and our souls alternated between hope and fear, happiness and despair. Three of us, however, have some experience in wedded life, and the gallant Adjutant is reasonably confident that he will obtain further knowledge on the subject if this cruel war ever comes to an end and his sweetheart survives.
14. The paymaster has been busy. The boys are very bitter against the sutler, realizing, for the first time, that "sutler's chips" cost money, and that they have wasted on jimcracks too much of their hard earnings. Conway has taken a solemn Irish oath that the sutler shall never get another cent of him. But these are like the half repentant, but resultless, mutterings of the confirmed drunkard. The "new leaf" proposed to be turned over is never turned.
16. Am told that some of the boys lost in gambling every farthing of their money half an hour after receiving it from the paymaster.
An Indiana soldier threw a bombshell into the fire to-day, and three men were seriously wounded by the explosion.
The writer was absent from camp from October 21st to latter part of November, serving on court-martial, first at Huttonville, and afterward at Beverly.
In November the Third was transferred to Kentucky.
NOVEMBER, 1861.
30. The Third is encamped five miles south of Louisville, on the Seventh-street plank road.
As we marched through the city my attention was directed to a sign bearing the inscription, in large black letters,
"NEGROES BOUGHT AND SOLD."
We have known, to be sure, that negroes were bought and sold, like cattle and tobacco, but it, nevertheless, awakened new, and not by any means agreeable, sensations to see the humiliating fact announced on the broad side of a commercial house. These signs must come down.
The climate of Kentucky is variable, freezing nights and thawing in the day. The soil in this locality is rich, and,
