Unquestionably a speech.  Perhaps a few Napoleonic words on the eve of battle.  No; Colonel Varian wishes to explain that it was nobody’s fault that our left wing was deserted at Chambersburg, in order to prevent ill feeling between the regiments.  He does so, and appeals to our lieutenant-colonel.  Our lieutenant-colonel verifies and indorses.  Perfectly satisfactory; in evidence of which the two commands exchange cheers.

Henceforth we and the 8th are fast friends.  We have other friends also—­Captain Miller’s battery, of Pennsylvania, has been in front with us, and though out for ‘the emergency,’ declares it will stay as long as the 71st.  So we all fraternize, hailing any member as ‘8th,’ ‘71st,’ or ‘Battery,’ and cheer when we pass each other.  The 8th are good cheerers, and though we outnumbered them, I think they outdid us in three times three and a ‘tiger,’ the inevitable refrain.  The ‘tiger’ (sounding tig-a-h-h) is the test of a cheer.  If the cheer be a spontaneous burst of hearty good feeling, the tiger concentrates its energy, and is full and prolonged—­if it be only the cheer courteous or the cheer civil, the tiger will fall off and die prematurely.

Just at dark we left camp, passed rapidly through the town, along the turnpike about two miles, and halted in a cornfield beside the road, where we formed line of battle.  We received orders to ‘load at will,’ and fire low.  The 8th were on the opposite side of the road, and their battery somewhere near us.  After some time, nobody appearing, permission was given to thrust our muskets by the bayonets in the ground; and soon after, one by one, the men dropped off asleep.  The evening had been extremely sensational.  The sudden departure, the rapid march, whither and for what we knew not, yet full of momentary expectation; the orders and preparations indicating the imminence of grim, perhaps ghastly work, in the night hours; the line of men, stretching beyond sight in the darkness, far from home, and, it might be, near to death, sleeping yet waiting:—­the total was singularly impressive.

Nevertheless, I too was soon asleep, and slept undisturbed till morning.  Then, rebels or no rebels, we must have breakfast.  There was none to be had in the regiment; but the farmhouses supplied us, and an ancient dame intermitted packing her goods for flight, to cook the pork which made part of my three days’ rations.  Then I stretched myself beneath the shade of a roadside house within sound of orders, and having nothing else on hand, went to sleep again.

I was now broken in.  Camp rations I could eat; camp coffee, though always sans milk and often sans sugar, I deemed good; a wash was a luxury, not a necessity; and I could sleep anywhere.