Produced by Sam W. and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print project.) REMINISCENCES OF SERVICE WITH THE FIRST VOLUNTEER REGIMENT OF GEORGIA, CHARLESTON HARBOR, IN 1863. AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE GEORGIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY, MARCH 3, 1879. BY COLONEL CHARLES H. OLMSTEAD. SAVANNAH, GA.: PRINTED AND PRESENTED BY J. H. ESTILL, PROPRIETOR MORNING NEWS, 1879. ANNALS OF THE WAR. In preparing the following paper, it has been my desire only to record what its title suggests--personal reminiscences. Leaving to other and abler pens the task of writing an accurate history of the scenes and events to which reference is now about to be made, I shall confine myself simply to the task of setting down such things as came under my personal observation, or within the scope of my individual knowledge. I do this the more confidently, remembering the marked interest that invariably attaches to the testimony of an eyewitness, and also bearing in mind (for my own comfort) that this interest will always incline his hearers to leniency in judging literary demerits. It is probable, too, that some of my old comrades will be pleased at this recurrence to an eventful period in their lives, while a younger generation in the ranks may be glad to have placed before them a record, not of the "pomp and circumstance of glorious war," but of its privations, its hardships, its perils, and, it may be added, its lessons of self-abnegation and of devotion to duty. Early in the month of July, 1863, while stationed very comfortably at the Isle of Hope, a courier, "spurring in hot haste," brought orders from Department headquarters that set our camp at once in a turmoil of eager and excited preparation. The 32d Georgia, Col. George P. Harrison, Jr., the 12th and 18th Georgia Battalions, Lieut.-Col. H. D. Capers and Major W. S. Basinger, and a battalion from the First Volunteer Regiment of Georgia, were ordered to proceed with the least possible delay to Savannah, there to take cars for Charleston.