issue, official reports to receive, and troops to be sent here and there. Sometimes Union citizens, overflowing with patriotic zeal, had news to tell at headquarters, which they thought to be important. If now and then their zeal outstripped their discretion, it was little wonder that the information they carried should be lacking in accuracy. No doubt such instances of unintentional but hurtful mistakes were rare, for military life and discipline forbade their repetition even by civilians. One case was visited with a reprimand to the offender that was justly severe upon him and amusing to others. Late one night a strong partisan interrupted the serenity at headquarters with the exciting statement that the Confederates had marched upon Maryville, in Blount County, 17 miles distant, where were only a few United States soldiers. Quickly a sufficient body of cavalry were summoned from their beds into their saddles and dispatched to repel the invading force. The alarm proved to be false; no Confederate troops were found in or near Maryville. The next day. General Burnside, on meeting his deceived and deceiving informant, said to him, “Mr. ----, you bring me a great deal of news. Now, I don’t want you to bring me any more, for _the average is bad_!” It has been said that all religion springs from a sense of dependence upon the Supreme Being. We may doubt the truth of the postulate, but certainly all true religion includes that sense, and it had its proper place in the mind of Gen. Burnside. While his personal and social conduct in East Tennessee was upright and blameless, he was not forgetful of Him who “doeth according to His will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth,” and to thoughts of whom, the responsibilities of his position, its difficulties and dangers tended to move him more actively. He once said to a friend during that period, that he “loved sometimes to retire to his own room, there to lift up his mind and heart to God, and to give himself to quiet meditation.” The impression made by his conversations, his reverent participation in the worship of God and hearing of the gospel, was that without much knowledge of religious doctrine, he accepted in faith the truth of Christianity. Immediately after his first arrival at Knoxville, Burnside sent to a certain Christian minister, who because of his Union sentiments had been excluded for precisely two years from his pastoral charge, a written invitation to fill the unoccupied pulpit of his own church on the next Sunday. The request was complied with--the day being the 6th of September. By one of those curious coincidences which have been noticed to occur at different times in similar religious services, when the portion of the Psalms for that morning came to be responsively read, the minister unexpectedly to himself and to the surprised attention of some in the congregation who knew all the facts of the case, began, as prescribed, with the words: