It was a beautiful day when our company left home, and what a crowd of people assembled to see us off! What a waving of banners and handkerchiefs; what shouting and cheering; what an endless amount of hand-shaking; how many 'farewells,' 'good-bys,' and 'take-care-of-yourselves,' were spoken; all of this had to be gone through with, and our company run the gauntlet and nobody was hurt. Going to war is no child's play, as many seem to suppose. Once sworn in as a _private_, you become a tool, a mere thing, to do another's bidding. I do not say this to discourage enlistments,--far from it. I am only speaking the truth. 'Forewarned, forearmed.' If there is a hard life upon earth, it is that of a common soldier; he may be the bravest man in the army, he may perform an endless amount of daring deeds, but it is seldom that he gains a tangible reward. He does all the fighting, he performs all the drudgery, he is plundered by the sutler, he lives on pork and hard-bread, but he gets none of the honors of a victory. As Biglow says,-- 'Lieutenants are the lowest grade that help pick up the coppers.' I belonged to an artillery company. I joined this because somebody told me I could ride. I wish I had that _somebody_ by the throat. The idea of a man's _riding_ over the mountains of Western Virginia! I won't call it ridiculous, for that's no name for it. I will pass over the uninteresting part of the campaign, that of lying in camp, as everybody now-a-days has ample opportunity to judge of camp life, in the cities, and take the reader at once into 'active service,' and show the hardships and trials, together with the fun (for soldiers _do_ have their good times) of campaigning. On the 29th day of May, 1861, we arrived at Parkersburgh, Va. It was my first visit to the Old Dominion. We had been taught when youngsters at school to regard Virginia as a sort of Holy Land, 'flowing with milk and honey,' and the mother of all that is great and noble in the United States, if not in the world. We were 'going South.' It was at the close of a warm spring day that we landed there; the sun was just sinking in the west as the boat rounded-to at the wharf. We jumped ashore, and for the first time in our lives inhaled the 'sacred atmosphere' of the so-called Southern Confederacy. All was bustle and confusion; but we soon had our traps, _i.e._, guns, caissons and horses, unloaded, and a little after dark were on the march. We proceeded a few miles out of town, and at midnight halted, pitched our tents, stationed guards, and all who were so fortunate as not to be detailed for duty were soon sound asleep. At Grafton, one hundred miles east of Parkersburgh, we were told there was a party of some two thousand rebels. This then was the object of our visit to Western Virginia, to drive these men east of the mountains,--from whence most of them came,--and to protect the honor of our flag in that portion of Virginia now known by the name of Kanawha.