The Log of the Empire State

comes of one great battle after another, and I look around in the school-room and see the many vacant seats once occupied by the older boys, and think of where they are and what they may be doin

the "Old Academy," and, with his copy of C?sar spread out before him, lay stretched out at full length on the greensward, in the shade of a large cherry-tree, whose fruit was already turning red under the warm spring sun. It was a beautiful, dreamy day in May, early in the summer of 1862, the second year of the great Civil War. The air was laden with the sweet scent of the young clover, and vocal with the

rsevered at his task until he had triumphantly mastered it. Then, closing the book and clasping

have the sprin

ed you were when the news came about Fort Sumter last spring? You would have enlist

and as I cannot study and keep on thinking of the war all the

carcely any large boys left in it any more, only little fellows

gs as he should have been, there he was, sitting on an old harrow outside his shop-door whittling a stick, while Elias Foust was reading an account of the last battle from some newspaper. I shouldn't wonder if Elias

if your father would cons

this war-fever. But you are too young to enlist; they wouldn't take you. And you had therefore better make up your mind to stick to sch

of Troy, what are they when compared with the great war now being waged in our own time and country? The nodding plumes of Hector and the shining armor of all old H

eclining posture, "is cousin Joe Gutelius, hoeing corn in his fat

-three years of age, tall, well built, of a fine manly bearing, and looked a likely subject for a recruiting-off

for work in a cornf

ation, which stood in great beads on his brow. "But I believe I'd rather hoe corn than go to scho

the spring-fever, I tell him; but he thinks he has the war-fever.

the spring-fever,

of course, Joe," sa

harlie and Sam, both wanted to go, and I declared that if they went I'd go too; and mother took it so much to heart that we all had to give it up. Charlie and Sam came near joining a

dy, "that he had better stick to

; "that would take both the spring-fever and the war-fever out of him in a jiffy.

liable to be carried away by the prevailing restlessness of the times. But for myself study continued to grow more and more irksome as the summer drew on apace, so that when, before the close of the term, a former schoolmate

to enlist. I find the school is fast breaking up; most of t

s off to the recruiting-office, showed my father's letter, and asked to be sworn in. But alas! I was only sixteen, and lacked two year

, when, unfortunately for my peace of mind, a gentleman who had been my school-teacher some years previously, began to raise a company for the war, and the village at once went into another whirl of excitement, which carried me utterly away; for they said I could enlist as

I think you are quite too young and delicate, and I gave my p

his was followed by an immense mass-meeting, and our future captain, Henry W. Crotzer, made a stirring speech, and the band played, and the people cheered and cheered again, as man after man stepped up and put his name down on the list. Albert Foster and Joe Ruhl and Sam Ruhl signed their names, and then Jimmy Lucas and Elias Foust and Ike Zellers and several others foll

med as if the whole county had suspended work and voted itself a holiday, for a continuous stream of people, old and young, poured out of the little

umber of which was steadily swelled to quite a procession as we advanced. The band played, and the flags waved, and the boys cheered, and the people at work in the fields cheered back, and the young farmers rode down the lanes on their horses, or brought their sweethearts

ard the river, the sidewalks were everywhere crowded with people,-with boys who wore red-white-and-blue neckties, and boys who wore fatigue-caps; with girls who carried flags, and girls who carried flowers; with women who waved their kerchiefs, and

y starts f

the hand, a last good by, and a last "God bless you, boys!" And so, amid cheering, and hand-shaking, and flag-waving, and band-playing, the train at last came thundering

o leave the train at a way station some miles down the road, and walk out to my home in the country, and say go

body was looking down the road, nobody was in sight. Even Rollo, the dog, my old playfellow, was asleep somewhere in the shade, and all was sultry, hot, and still. Leaping lightly over the fence by the spring at the foot of t

uestion, "Why, Harry! where did you come from?" I answered, "I come from school, and I'm off for the war!" You may well believe there was an exciting time of it in the dining-room of that old red farmhouse

t. What would they do with a mere boy like you? Why, you'd be only a bill

rafted and sent amongst men unknown to me, while here was a company commanded by my own school-teacher, and composed of acquaintances who would look after me; that I was unfit

etter run up to the store and get some woollens, and

guess you had

epping past the gate on he

can't go! I ca

etter be after getting that woollen stuff for s

make me all this trouble?

ht, and my thoughts are as busy as it is, until far into the morning, with all that is

the carriage to take father and me to the station, and we are soon on the ca

of my first camp,-acres and acres of canvas, stretching away into the dim and dusty distance, occupied, as I shall soon find, by some ten or twenty tho

flap of which was thrown back, and saw enough to make me sick of the housekeeping of a soldier. There was nothing in that tent but dirt and disorder, pans and kettles, tin cups and cracker-boxes, forks and bayonet-scabbards, greasy pork and broken hard-tack in utter confusion, and over all and everywhere that insuf

at father thought "one could live on right well, I guess;" and then the boys came around and begged father to let me go; "they would take care of Harry; never yo

am going home on this train; you can go home with

quickly and too eagerly, I have often since t

l go with

And may God bless you and brin

door closed on father, and I did not se

er" was a terrible malady in those days. Once you were taken with it, you had a very fire in the bones until your name was down on the enlistment-roll. There was Andy, for example, my schoolfellow, and afterward my messmate for

ntance in line, what did he do but run across the street to an undertaker's shop, cram his school-books through the broken window, take his place in line,