The Twenty-fourth Massachusetts was a noble battalion, with a glorious record. Through its four years of service, its well-earned reputation for good discipline, thorough drill, and staunch courage was unsurpassed; and few regiments were its equals in hard fighting and practical efficiency. It would be enough for any man's soldierly reputation that he stood well in that regiment; for he who won honor there deserved it everywhere. Hence the good name there secured by Henry Manning shows his personal worth, and indicates the value of his services. Said Col. Ordway, at the close of Manning's term of service, "I have known his whole course since he has been a soldier.... He has always been a brave, faithful, truthful, soldier, ... honest and temperate, and in every way to be trusted." Maj. Edmands added, "I can cheerfully say, that I have never known a braver man in the regiment--and I was formerly his captain. He is, I believe, competent to fill any position where fidelity, integrity, and energy are required." Adjutant Stoddard also testified, "[He] has always been especially noticed for the efficient manner in which he has performed his duties as a soldier: always ready for any daring undertaking, he has won for himself a place in the hearts of the officers and his comrades of the Twenty-fourth Massachusetts; and his name can never be obliterated from the pages of the history of that regiment." FIGHTING AND PRAYING. The Twenty-fourth went out in the Burnside expedition to the waters of North Carolina, and, passing the perils of Hatteras "Swash," had an honorable and distinguished part, under brave and beloved Gen. John G. Foster, in the battles of Roanoke, Newbern, Little Washington, Rawl's Mills, Kinston, Whitehall, and Goldsboro'. In all this service, Manning gained in manliness and in the Christian graces, under the developing influences of active army life. At Kinston he had a narrow escape from death. A bullet struck the rail of a fence, behind which he was stationed as a sharpshooter, just in range of his head; a knot turned it aside so that it barely passed his cheek, scattering the splinters in his eyes. In the spring and early summer of 1863, the Twenty-fourth was in South Carolina, passing months on the sickly sea-islands, where it was said no white man had before lived at that season of the year. It was there that the writer of this sketch--then chaplain of another regiment in the same brigade--first met young Manning. His regiment then having no chaplain, he was one of an association of earnest Christians who had banded together to keep up religious meetings, and to do good as they had opportunity, among their fellows. Under their rustic canopy of boughs, beneath the grand old live oaks, and amid the stately palms of Seabrook Island, were enjoyed never-to-be-forgotten hours of prayer and praise. JAMES ISLAND.--HOSPITAL SUPPLY OF REBEL SHELLS.