[Illustration: Presentation of the Flag at the Freight House.] About 12 o’clock we marched to the depot, and an immense crowd of people gathered around us, bade us good-bye, and we boarded the train and were soon on our way to Springfield, where we arrived the following morning and met a number of companies from different parts of the State. A few days after our arrival we were organized into a regiment, which required ten companies. The Mendota company was made Co. B, and the regiment the 12th Illinois Infantry, with Col. McArthur in command, who was subsequently commissioned Major General. The Mendota company contained more than the required number of men. Among the surplus bone and sinew who found no place in the home company were L. B. Crooker, James W. Larabee, William Eckert, George C. Loomis, S. P. Whitmore and myself, who all determined to stick together and stay in service. We immediately began looking about for an opening large enough to hold these six husky farmer boys, and it was at last accomplished by entering Co. H of the same regiment. This was from Tiskilwa, and was commanded by Capt. Swain, who subsequently lost his life at Shiloh. We remained together in the same mess until discharged at the end of three months. It was now imagined that we were going south to crush the Rebellion at once, but, alas, we failed to realize what was before us. Little did we think that it would require four long years to end the great Rebellion. We remained here several weeks, passing the time in drilling and running about town. On May 25 we were transferred to Caseyville, Ill., about ten miles east of St. Louis, where we remained a month or more. While here we received a good many instructions in military tactics, and soon considered ourselves equal to Napoleon or any other great general. [Illustration: The Kicking Musket.] The guns we received were of the old kicking variety, and could kick equal to a mule. I can well remember having a very lame shoulder from the effects of discharging one of these firearms. It reminded me of a story I heard when I was a boy, about an Irish soldier in an Illinois regiment during the Mexican War. One day during a small engagement the soldier fired at the enemy with one of those kicking guns, which knocked him over backward flat on the ground. His captain, thinking that he was shot, said, “Mike, are you wounded?” He replied, “Captain, it seems as though I had the wrong end against my shoulder.”