geese, and chickens-strapped to their saddles or hidden in the limber chests, sure of a good square meal when camp was reached, regardless of the commissary. It was very comfortable to belong to a light battery in those days, when rations were sometimes short, tents a forbidden luxury, and traveling on foot very wet and muddy.

My battery, K, First New York Light Artillery, was not noted for being behind in providing for its own comfort. Few men could forage better. If I had permitted it, I might have been fully mounted and equipped, provided with horse, saddle, and bridle complete, "foraged" from the country outside our picket lines. Whilst Early was gathering up good stock in Maryland from Union citizens, one of our men-a goodnatured, cross-eyed, jolly rascal, whom I was reproving for having "run it" outside our pickets-offered to bring in a fine rebel horse and equipments if I would give him permission. to go out. As I did not grant the permission, it is unnecessary to say that I did not get the horse. This same fellow I believe to have been a leader in a system of foraging upon our own rations, ten days' extra supply of which were kept on hand and were receipted for by a lieutenant of infantry, and a guard placed over them. Notwithstanding all precautions, the sugar and candles of the ration would unaccountably disappear from under the very eyes of the sentinel, until the bright idea occurred to the post commander to transfer the responsibility of the rations from his officer to me. This was done, with the understanding that men of my battery should be detailed as guard over it. That evening, when the battery was paraded at retreat, I informed the men that I had been made responsible for those rations, and desired that there be

no more foraging in that direction. A gentle smile passed through the lines, but no more rations were missed whilst I remained in charge of them. I ascertained, on inquiring, that the probable modus operandi in procuring the articles was to select their sentinel, and whilst one or two engaged his attention, others were slyly helping themselves to the stores under his charge. which they hid under their blouses, carried outside, and traded with the country people for milk, eggs, and fruit. This cross-eyed individual no doubt persuaded many a sentinel that his eyes were fixed upon him, whilst in reality they were fastened upon the sugar barrel or a box of

candles.

The dismounting of this battery was but one item in the programme just then adopted by General Grant, which was to fill up his depleted ranks in the field by bringing there the regiments of heavy artillery which had been garrisoning the forts around Washington, and to replace them with a small number of such veterans as were most available to make a nucleus around which to gather a temporary strength from militia or volunteers who could be enlisted for a short period of time. Thus came the hundred-day regiments, mostly (if not all) from Ohio, some of which were, in the course of subsequent events, actively engaged and severely cut up.

The heavy artillery guarding Washington had never before been called upon for other duty, and as, in the enlistments to fill the quotas of the different states, it was allowed men to choose their regiments, many who enlisted or were drafted during the latter part of the war preferred being behind breastworks, and in the vicinity of Washington, to taking their chances in the field, in consequence of which, and from

comparatively small losses by sickness, etc., these regiments were immensely strong in numbers and larger than many brigades, and not unequal to some divisions, toward the close of the hard fighting of Grant's campaign. Some of them had to double up, being large enough for two regiments, the additional one being called a "provisional" regiment, with the same name and number as the original.

I well remember seeing one of them march up Pennsylvania Avenue, starting for the front-a magnificent body of men, the companies full, well drilled, and thoroughly equipped. Of the good service they rendered their decimated ranks gave evidence, as the small remnant of that same regiment again marched over Pennsylvania Avenue at the grand review which closed their military service preparatory to returning to their homes.

To say that they were satisfied, at the time, to be taken from what they considered to be their legitimate duty, marched to the front and used as infantry, would be wrong. Neither they nor the light artillerymen, who were dismounted to take their places, were satisfied, and the amount of hard swearing done on the part of each could not have been exceeded by that of the celebrated "army in Flanders." The climax of swearing on our part-I won't admit that I swore myself, as an individual-but the climax of collective swearing by the battery-was reached when the men were ordered to lay aside their sabers and take up the musket; the final completion, as they felt, of their degradation. Consider that they had enlisted as light artillerymen; many of them were veterans who had re-enlisted as such, they knew all about a

battery, nothing whatever of infantry service or the use of a musket; could they well be blamed for their displeasure?

I joined my battery at Fort Marcy. This was a small earthwork located just beyond the Chain Bridge, about half or three-quarters of a mile from it, on the Leesburg pike. On its right was the Potomac River. On the highest elevation at its left was Fort Ethan Allen, the two works being connected by infantry trenches, which would admit of the passage of troops partially under cover, or of being manned as breastworks. A like line, protected by an abatis, ran from Fort Marcy to the banks of the river. Across the pike a strong stockade with a loop-holed gate had been built, being intended as a protection against a sudden attack of cavalry. These two works, Ethan Allen and Marcy, formed a tete-de-pont in front of Chain Bridge. On the other side of the river was Fort Sumner, with works extending to its right connecting the line with Forts Reno, DeRussy, and Stevens, which lay directly north of the western half of the city.

The armament of Fort Marcy was not extensive. It consisted, as I remember it, of six or eight 30-pounder Parrott guns, two 20-pounders, and two 10-pounders pointing up the pike; with two obsolete smooth-bores (32-pounders) mounted in barbette, upon wooden carriages, and four field pieces, pointing to our left front and toward the valley between the two forts. The rear of the work was protected only by an earthen gorge, through which was the entrance, closed by a strong gate similar to the one across the pike. The garrison consisted of about forty dismounted light artillerymen of my battery and four companies of the One hundred and Fortyseventh Ohio Volunteer Infantry (hundred days' men), com