The loss of the North Carolina coast was a great blow to the Confederacy, opening as it did the way for Sherman’s march northward. Foster’s army was really an outpost of the greater force threatening Richmond. In July, 1863, their service was completed and they were homeward bound once more. Travelling by boat to Baltimore, stopping for a visit at Fort Monroe, thence by train to New York, and having a square meal en route at Philadelphia, by boat to New Haven and train to Boston, they were given a hearty welcome home at old Boylston Hall, the Tiger armory, on July 21. The Boston Light Infantry at once became the 24th Unattached Company, M. V. M. A few months of quiescence succeeded the Tigers’ nine months of duty in the 43d. Not until Aug., 1864, is there record of further activity. The war was drawing to a close, the nine-months regiments had been mustered out and the three-year commands were returning. Once more the ambition to have a “crack” regiment was stirring in Boston. Veteran and exempt members of the Tigers had formed the “Boston Lt. Inf. Assn.,” Nov. 1, 1862, during the absence of the active company. On this August date in 1864 the Light Infantry reorganized themselves as the “7th Infantry.” Maj. Charles O. Rogers, first commander of the 2d Battalion, was offered the colonelcy but declined; Daniel G. Handy was then elected, and received his commission on Nov. 6, 1865. (Col. Handy had been Maj. of the 12th Mass. in 1861 and 1862--indeed had been with the recruits in Ft. Warren when “John Brown’s Body” originated.) A vigorous attempt was made to form new companies and maintain the 7th at regimental standard. The 7th Mass. Inf., a Taunton command, had made a noble name for itself during three years of hard service; and had been mustered out just before the Tiger 7th came into existence. The traditions connected with the number were certain to prove stimulating. But the choice of a number had further significance; it was a deliberate attempt to reproduce the New York 7th. Gilmore became band-leader, and it was hoped that his famous musicians would lend brilliancy to the new regiment. It was in his capacity as leader of the 7th Regiment band that Gilmore arranged and conducted his first “Peace Jubilee Festival” in 1869, with ten thousand singers and eight hundred instrumentalists in a “coliseum” seating fifty thousand, and not exceeded in size even by Billy Sunday’s tabernacle of 1916. Music by wholesale, this, and very different from the original classical “Peace Jubilee” in King’s Chapel, Feb. 22, 1815, from which Gilmore obtained the suggestion. New England liked it; and derived benefit from the popularization of good music. And the 7th received no little advertising.