in the neighborhood would be impressed to aid in relieving the embargoed gun. The whipping of the horses and the cursing of the drivers was less soothing, if anything, than those soul shattering gunboat broadsides. There never was a night so long, so hideous, or so utterly uncomfortable. As the gray streaks of dawn began to appear, the band of the Thirteenth Regulars on the deck of one of the transports, came into the landing, playing a magnificent selection from “Il Trovatore.” How inspiring that music was! Even the poor, wounded men lying in front on the shore seemed to be lifted up, and every soldier seemed to receive an impetus. Soon there was light enough to distinguish objects around, and then came the ominous patter of musketry over beyond the river’s bluff, which told that the battle was on again. It began just as a shower of rain began and soon deepened into a terrible hail storm, with the booming artillery for thunder accompaniment. I was up and around and started immediately toward the front, for everybody felt now that the battle was to be ours. Those fresh and sturdy troops from the Army of the Ohio had furnished a blue bulwark, behind which the incomparable one-day fighters of Grant and Sherman were to push to victory. The whole aspect of the field in the rear changed. The skulkers of the day before seemed to be imbued with genuine manhood, and thousands of them returned to the front to render good service. In addition to this, six thousand fresh men under General Lew Wallace, who had marched from Crump’s Landing, ten miles away, had arrived during the night, and the tide of battle was now setting towards Corinth. I met a comrade drying himself out by a log fire, about a quarter of a mile from the landing, who had by some process secured a canteen of what was known as Commissary Whisky. He gave me one drink of it and that constituted my breakfast. Cold, wet and depressed, as I was, that whisky, execrable though it was, brought such consolation as I had never found before. I have drunk champagne in Epernay, I have sipped Johannisberger at the foot of its sunny mount, I have tasted the regal Montpulsanio, but, by Jove, I never enjoyed a drink as I did that swig of common whisky, on the morning of the 7th of April, 1862! While drying myself by this fire I saw a motley crowd of Confederate prisoners marched past, under guard. As they waded along the muddy road, some of the cowardly skulkers indulged in the badinage usual on such occasions, and one of our fellows called out to know what company that was. A proud young chap in gray threw his head back, and replied, “_Company Q, of the Southern Invincibles, and be damned to you._” _That was the spirit of the day and the hour._