I am now about to begin a period lasting about six years, which, were it possible, I should gladly like to re-live, not with a view of repeating its woes and errors, pains and inconsistencies, but of rectifying the mistakes I made. So far, I had made none of any importance; but enlisting in the Confederate service, because I received a packet of female clothes, was certainly a grave blunder. But who is able to withstand his fate or thwart the designs of Providence? It may have been time for me, getting close on to eighteen, to lose some of the soft illusions of boyhood, and to undergo the toughening process in the trail of war. Looking backward upon the various incidents of these six years, though they appear disjointed enough, I can dimly see a connection, and how one incident led to the other, until the curious and somewhat involved design of my life, and its purpose, was consummated. But this enlistment was, as I conceive it, the first of many blunders; and it precipitated me into a veritable furnace, from which my mind would have quickly recoiled, had I but known what the process of hardening was to be. Just as the fine edge of boyish sensitiveness was blunted, somewhat, by the daring blasphemy of the ‘Windermere’ officers, so modesty and tenderness were to be shocked, by intercourse with men who cast off sweet manners with their civilian clothes, and abandoned themselves to the rude style of military life. A host of influences were at work sapping moral scruples. The busy days, the painful events, the excitement of the camp, the general irreligiousness, the disregard of religious practice, the contempt for piety, the licentious humours of the soldiers, the reckless and lavish destruction of life, the gluttonous desire to kill, the devices and stratagems of war, the weekly preaching in defence of it, the example of my elders and superiors, the enthusiasm of beautiful women for strife--finally, all that was weak, vain, and unfixed in my own nature, all conspired to make me as indifferent as any of my fellows to all sacred duties. I had to learn that that which was unlawful to a civilian was lawful to the soldier. The ‘Thou shalt not’ of the Decalogue, was now translated ‘Thou shalt.’ Thou shalt kill, lie, steal, blaspheme, covet, and hate; for, by whatever fine names they were disguised, everyone practised these acts, from the President down to the private in the rear rank. The prohibition to do these things was removed, and indulgence in licence and excess was permissible. My only consolation, during this curious ‘volte-face’ in morality, was, that I was an instrument in the strong, forceful grip of circumstance, and could no more free myself than I could fly.