But a word of my companions: Atkins was an Irish gentleman of fortune, but passionately fond of military adventure. He first saw service in Garibaldi’s Italian war, where he made the acquaintance of the lamented Major Bob Wheat, and a strong attachment was the result. At the breaking out of the rebellion, Atkins came to this country, and hunting up his old companion-in-arms, whom he found encamped at Manassas, in command of a Louisiana battalion, he entered the ranks as a private, and at the First Manassas won his captain’s stripes. He continued to serve in the command with distinction up to the death of Wheat, and the disbanding of the battalion as just stated. Grinnell (a son of Henry Grinnell, one of the merchant princes of New York) also came from Europe at the breaking out of the war, sacrificing a lucrative business, and joined the command of Wheat also, as a first lieutenant. In the fight with Kenly’s forces at Front Royal, he had the misfortune to lose a portion of his right hand by a piece of shell, and had just been declared convalescent, and was ready for the field, but found himself without a command. Shellman had practiced law in Frederick, Maryland, and served with great credit as first lieutenant of my company from its organization. Never having kept a diary, reader, you will excuse little discrepancies in dates, but I think it was about the 22d of August that Atkins marshalled his forces and marched them aboard a James River canal boat, _en route_ for the anticipated scene of action—I mean to say _we_ were, and not the canal boat. We were compelled to take this route owing to the Central Road being taxed to its utmost capacity in the transportation of troops to reinforce Lee’s army, and therefore our only alternative was to go by the way of Scottsville, Charlottesville, to Gordonsville, etc. Arriving at the former place, we hired a rickety wagon, to which was attached a wretched specimen of the mule kind, and after a long and tedious ride made our _entre_ into the ancient village of Charlotte, not with the “pomp, pride and circumstance of glorious war,” but amid the curses of an irate driver, and such expressions as “may the divil take the ass and his master for hathans,” from our illustrious brigadier.