[Illustration: SAMUEL KIMBALL ELLIS This picture was taken at time of enlistment Sept. 12, 1863, at the age of 22. He enlisted as a private in Company G, 25th Regiment, Connecticut Volunteers.] About fifty years ago the people in the North were probably in a frenzy of excitement. We soldiers in the South had learned to take things cool. Vicksburg, the stumbling block, had fallen; Port Hudson had caved in; Lee and his army had gone to one eternal smash; Port Hudson had scarcely surrendered when we were called upon again to take the field. Those confounded Rebels didn't know how to stay whipped, and General Taylor, reinforced by General Magruder's Texicans, had again taken the field. They attacked us at Donaldsonville with a much larger force in proportion to ours but got soundly thrashed; we being strongly reinforced, came out to meet them and got whipped, and so the matter rested. The commanding officer of the brigade was flanked through carelessness and they had to fall back with a loss of two cannon. Our brigade was on the reserve. We fell in and rushed to the rescue but too late, for they were in full retreat. A new line was formed, the Twenty-fifth deployed as skirmishers and sent forward. After advancing quite a distance through the corn we were ordered back and our whole force fell back about half a mile, where we were still holding a strong position. The Rebels meanwhile had left and fortified at Labordieville, some twenty miles distant. The Twenty-fifth Connecticut regiment, after one of the most trying campaigns of the war, was about to take another sea voyage. Here are a few verses which I have written on the siege of Port Hudson: PORT HUDSON. Well do I remember, how fifty years ago, Down on the banks of the Mississippi, We met the Southern foe, And faced a storm of shot and shell; That many a life was sacrificed Mid battle hell of smoke and flame On the field of Port Hudson. Well do I remember, how those days, The gallant Third Brigade went Marching down into the woods Like men on dress parade; Though from the wood in front The foe their deadly missiles sent. Thinning our ranks Those days at Bloody Port Hudson. How on the left the Connecticut Thirteenth engaged in desperate fight And left in front the Twenty-fifth was marshaled on the right; Side by side, New York and Maine for honors did contend, When Rebel yell and Yankee cheer was heard at Port Hudson. And though we drove away the foe How dear was victory won, For when the din of battle ceased, The burning sun shone down upon the bloody field And shone on foe and friend, Who bravely met a soldier's fate, That day on the field of Port Hudson.