CHAPTER II. Graduation--Commissioned Brevet Second Lieutenant, U. S. A.--Ordered to Fort Macon, N. C.--Goldsboro--Journey to Beaufort--Officers at the Fort--Life in a Casemate--Stormy Atlantic--That Oyster Supper--The Wandering Cot--Adieu to Fort Macon--Journey to Washington--Lieuts. George H. Thomas and John Pope--Weldon, N. C.--Go to West Point--Prof. Morse--First Dispatch--Hope Club, Washington--Dinner Given by Surgeon General Lawson--Appointed Aid to Gen. Scott--British Gold--Col. S. Churchill--Integrity of Old Army Officers--Leave Washington for Fort McHenry--Society in Baltimore--Chief Justice Taney. I believe it was on the 9th day of June, 1843, the examinations ended, we bade adieu to old Fort Putnam, the Crow's Nest, the Dunderburg, the halls, the lovers' walk, the professors, in short to West Point and all that it contained, and took passage on a steamer on the ever-beautiful Hudson for New York City. A new life was opened to us, the wide world was before us, and we believed we were equal to all environments, and anxious for the strife; and, if I possess a correct power of retrospection, we generally had a higher opinion of ourselves _then_ than we have had _since_ in the battle of life, amid joy and sorrow, hopes and disappointment, praise and detraction, sordid avarice and the little trust in the sincerity of man. In the course of time we comprehended that "all is not gold that glitters." In a day or two we began to separate for our homes, and I bade farewell to some whose faces I never saw again. When the assignments to the army were made, in July following, I was notified that I had been commissioned a brevet second lieutenant in the United States army and assigned to Company --, Third Regiment of Artillery, then stationed at Fort Macon, N. C. I was ordered to report for duty by the first day of October. Bidding good-by to all at home, I started for Beaufort, N. C., Fort Macon being on an island opposite to the town. I traveled by way of Baltimore, Washington, Richmond, and Petersburg to Goldsboro; thence by stagecoach to New Berne and Beaufort. The journey was made without incident of note. On the train there was a spruce individual from New York City on his way to Charleston. Some one had alarmed him very much about "malaria," and he cautioned me against rising in the morning until after the sun had dissipated the poisonous vapors of the night. The consequence was I remained in bed at the hotel in Goldsboro, waiting for the mist to rise before I did, until I heard the stage horn calling for passengers, and I came near getting no breakfast. But the driver was one of those happy-go-easy fellows, who said: "I am in no haste; go and get your breakfast."