“If I am a soldier, I belong somewhere,” said I.

“Of course you do,” said Adjutant Haskell; “and all that we propose is to give you a home until you find where you belong; and the place we propose for you is undoubtedly the best place we know of.  Company H is a fine body of men; since I am no longer in it I may say that they are picked men; the most of them are gentlemen.  Let me mention some good old Carolina names—­you will remember them, I think.  Did you never hear the name of Barnwell?”

“Yes, of course,” I said; “I’ve been to Barnwell Court-House.  I believe this place—­I mean Aiken—­is in Barnwell district.”

“Well, John G. Barnwell is the first lieutenant in Company H. Do you know of the Rhetts?”

“Yes, the name is familiar as that of a prominent family.”

“Grimke Rhett is a lieutenant in Company H. Then there are the Seabrooks and the Hutsons, and Mackay, and the Bellots[6], and Stewart, and Bee, and Fraser Miller, and many more who represent good old families.  You would speedily feel at home.”

[6] The Bellots were of a French Huguenot family, which settled in Abbeville, S.C. (in 1765?).  The name gradually came to be pronounced Bellotte. [ED.]

“Gentlemen,” said I, “how I ever became a soldier I do not know.  I am a soldier in a cause that I do not understand.”

“And you have done many other things that you could not now understand if you were told of them,” said the doctor.

“But, Jones,” said the adjutant, “a man who has already been wounded in the service of his country ought to be proud of it!”

“What do you mean, Captain?” I asked.

“Hold on!” said Dr. Frost.  “Well, I suppose there is no harm done.  Tell him how he was hurt, Aleck.”

“How did you suppose you received your hurt?” asked the adjutant.

“I was told by Dr. Frost that somebody knocked me down,” said I, with nervous curiosity.

“Yes, that’s so; somebody did knock you down,” said the doctor.

“You were struck senseless by a bursting shell thrown by the enemy’s cannon,” said the adjutant, “and yet you refuse to admit that you are a soldier!”

To say that I was speechless would be weak.  I stared back at the two men.

“You have on the uniform; you are armed; you are in the ranks; you are under fire from the enemy’s batteries, where death may come, and does come; you are wounded; you are brought to your hospital for treatment.  And yet you doubt that you are a soldier!  You must be merely dreaming that you doubt!”

While speaking Adjutant Haskell had risen, a sign that he was getting angry, I feared; but no, he was going to leave.  “Jones, good-by,” he said; “hold on to that strong will of yours, but don’t let it fall into obstinacy.”

The doctor came nearer.  “You are stronger than you thought,” said he.

“Yes, I am.  I was surprised.”