“In obedience to your country's call, you left your homes and families, and volunteered in its defense. Victory has crowned your valor, and secured the purpose of your patriotic hearts, and with the gratitude of your countrymen and the highest honors a great and free nation can accord, you will soon be permitted to return to your homes and families, conscious of having discharged the highest duties of American citizens. “To achieve the glorious triumphs, and secure to yourselves, your fellow-countrymen and posterity the blessings of free institutions, tens of thousands of your gallant comrades have fallen, and sealed the priceless legacy with their lives. The graves of these a grateful nation bedews with tears, honors their memories, and will ever cherish and support their stricken families.” CHAPTER XV. _Mustered Out at Arlington Heights--Back to the Old Bay State--Discharged From the Service--Startling News in a Quiet Village--Home, Sweet Home._ [Illustration: 9228] ERE at Arlington Heights the squadron of the First Massachusetts Cavalry, Companies C and D, commanded by Capt. E. A. Flint, and on duty at headquarters Army of the Potomac, was mustered out June 29, 1865, by Capt. J. C. Bates, of the Eleventh United States infantry, chief commissary of musters, in compliance with special orders No. 24 headquarters cavalry corps, June 18, 1865. A few days later we were en route to the Old Bay State to receive our discharges at Camp Meigs, Readville. Many of the boys were so anxious to get home that they could not wait to have their papers made out, but left requests to have them sent on to them by mail. I reached home a day or two after the Fourth of July. And what a reunion we had! All the family and many of the neighbors assembled to welcome the soldier boy. Of course I was a hero in the estimation of the good folks at home. I had yet seven months to live to reach my seventeenth birthday, but I had returned with a discharge which declared that “No objection to his being re-enlisted is known to exist.” In a marginal note it was stated that “This sentence will be erased should there be anything in the conduct or physical condition of the soldier rendering him unfit for the army.” Irving Waterman did not reach Berlin until two days after my arrival. He had remained at Boston to visit with one of the boys. My little sister Eva, when she saw me coming down the road without Irving, only waited to greet me with a kiss, and then started on a run for the home of Waterman's parents. “My brother's come home!” she exclaimed. “Praise the Lord!” shouted Mrs. Waterman. “But your son didn't come.” “Didn't he--what's the matter?” “He's dead.” “Dead? Irving dead--no, no! that can't be.” “But he didn't come, and he must be dead.”