In June, 1863, I was in Baltimore visiting at my uncle's and trying to recuperate after an attack of chills and fever, resulting from spending a summer on the other side of the Delaware. (I am now thoroughly persuaded, by the way, of the efficiency of mosquito's as carriers of malarial poison). I had recovered, but on hearing that Lee's army had marched towards Pennsylvania, my native state, I immediately resolved to go home and enlist in the army. Riding into the city and through the barricades guarded by Union soldiers, I took the train for Philadelphia, reaching my house on late Saturday night. Early Monday morning I enlisted in Company H of the Merchants' Regiment, 44th Pennsylvania Militia. Within a day or two I received uniform and arms and was on my way to Camp Curtin at Harrisburg, ready to march to the fords of the Potomac. Before leaving I called to see my former minister, John Chambers, to tell him what I was about to do, hoping to receive his blessing. As yet Vicksburg seemed impregnable, and apparently Lee was to march victoriously through Pennsylvania. Mr. Chambers argued against the possibility of putting down the rebellion, and descanted upon the impregnability of the terrific fortifications at Vicksburg, which were able, as he thought, to bid defiance to any force that could be brought against them. Our interview was ended by the entrance of his friend the Rev. Dr. William Swan Plumer, a handsome man of magnificent bearing, whose white beard swept his breast and whom I had more than once heard preach. He was a voluminous and popular writer, who had held pastorates in Richmond, Baltimore, and Allegheney City, Pa. From the close of the war until 1880 he was professor in the theological seminary at Columbia, S. C. Before I had been a day in Camp Curtin at Harrisburg, Lee was driven back from Gettysburg, and our war-governor himself in the camp announced to us the fall of Vicksburg. Years afterward in Ithaca, I wrote ex-governor Curtin a sympathizing letter on the death of his daughter, Mrs. William H. Sage, of our little city. He replied in a long letter full of appreciation and memories of 1861-'65. No memorial tablet was ever put up in the Chambers's church to the memory of the young men from the congregation who gave their lives to their country.