* * * * * During the interim came the easy days of soldier life. Ah! those happy, golden days of camp life, when, with guard mount, battalion drill, and dress parade, the time passed swiftly away, and each heart beat high with patriotic desire for early marching orders; days looked back to from the dreary bivouac in the snow, tentless, and with clothing in tatters, scarce covering the form from the bitter, cutting winds of winter, or in the drizzling rain on the lonely outpost when sharp-eyed rebels only waited for the opportunity to send the leaden messenger of death whizzing in your direction. Sometimes the “boys” thought the rations were not sufficiently “gilt-edged,” quite too plain in fact, for the savers of the country’s honor, yet how often, while trying, almost in vain, with the half-pint of raw meal to keep the soul and the poor emaciated body together in those hell devised starvation traps--Libby, Belle Isle, Andersonville, and Salisbury--did the brave fellows turn with longing hearts to the bounteous commissary at old Camp Giddings. Fears were oft expressed lest the war would close before the Twenty-ninth should be permitted to add its mite to the support of the flag. How needless they were the rolls show; more than one-third (five hundred and forty) of the one thousand five hundred and thirty-two members of the regiment, were either killed, wounded, or missing in action, and one hundred and fifty-seven died of disease. The colors, too, which waved so grandly in the sharp winter air, that long agone Christmas morning in 1861, are now in shreds, rent and torn by the leaden hail through which they were carried to glorious victories. This beautiful stand of colors was presented to the regiment on Wednesday, November 27th, by Hon. J. R. Giddings, on behalf of the donors, the ladies of Ashtabula and Summit counties. Mr. Giddings spoke as follows: “Gentlemen, officers and soldiers. Before entering upon the particular duty assigned me on the present occasion, I may be permitted to congratulate you and the country, upon the completion of your regimental organization and the perfection of your preparation for the field. I desire you at all times to bear in mind the causes which led to its formation. The present rebellion has its origin far back in history. Its first overt acts were put forth in Congress by subjecting the people of the free States to gag rules, by striking down the right of petition, by arraigning and publicly censuring Representatives for the faithful discharge of duty, by annexing, unconstitutionally, slave territory, and extending and strengthening the encroachments of slavery. To these violent encroachments upon the constitutional rights of the free States, this Western Reserve has from the first, presented a very general resistance....