Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) Some of My War Stories A Paper Read Before The Ohio Commandery of the Loyal Legion By Allen Ripley Foote October 1, 1913 Some of my War Stories BY ALLEN RIPLEY FOOTE Private: Co. B. 3rd Michigan Infantry; Second Lieutenant: Co. B. 21st Michigan Infantry. Read before the Commandery of the State of Ohio, Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States. Stated meeting, Cincinnati, Wednesday evening, October 1, 1913. When, in 1861, President Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to enlist for a three months' service to uphold the authority and preserve the unity of the United States, I, a boy of nineteen, sought the first opportunity that offered, to enlist. I was at the door of the recruiting office long before it opened. Dr. D. W. Bliss, who afterward became a famous army surgeon and was one of the surgeons who attended Presidents Lincoln and Garfield, gave me the required physical examination. When measuring my height he said--"Raise your heels, you are a little short." Before my regiment was mustered in, the call came for 300,000 volunteers to enlist for a three-years' service, and we were mustered in for three years. My regiment was ordered to Washington as soon as it was ready to move. Clad in grey uniforms and armed with old muzzle-loading Harper's Ferry muskets, which had been changed from flint locks, we made a valiant appearance and received ovations from the populace of every city and village through which we passed. This is especially true of Ohio. At one station all of the ladies of the town turned out loaded with small bouquets of flowers, to which were pinned slips on which they had written patriotic sentiments. These they threw into the car windows. The sentiment on the one I caught read--"The women of Ohio are for the Union--to a man." Our first camp was at the Maryland end of the Chain Bridge, which crossed the Potomac above Washington. We marched from this camp to Centerville, Va., to engage in the first battle of Bull Run. The first sight we had of war was on the morning of the second day's march, when we came upon some camp fires where the Confederates had cooked their breakfast that morning before leaving for Bull Run.