She touched on so many things--sore things and sacred things--in this speech, that I only looked at her with tears in my eyes; and she saw them. It was the only answer I could make, and before she could say any more, the elder and his wife came and took her home. I had got half-way to Cairo, Illinois, before I worked it out that by "the people back in our grove," she must have meant me; for the only others there had been that gang of horse-thieves: and if so she must have meant me when she spoke of "people who don't care for me any more"--but it was too late to do anything in the way of correcting this mistake then. All I could pride myself on was having a good memory as to what she said. I guess this proves my relationship to that other Dutchman who took so long to build the church. Remember, though, that he finally built it. 5 The Civil War is no part of the history of Vandemark Township; and I had small part in the Civil War. But one thing that took place on the field of Shiloh does belong in this history. Most of the members of my company enlisted in October, 1861, but we did not get to the front until the very day of the Battle of Shiloh. I was in one of the two regiments whose part in the battle has caused so much controversy. I gave Senator Cummins an affidavit about it only the other day to settle something about a monument on the field. We came up the Tennessee River the night of the day before the battle, and landed at Pittsburgh Landing at daybreak of the first day's fight. We had not had our guns issued to us yet. Some have thought it a little hard on us to be shoved into a great battle without ever having loaded or fired our muskets. When we were landed the guns were issued to my company, and we were given about half an hour's instruction in the way they were worked. Of course most of us had done shooting, and were a little better than green hands; but Will Lockwood during the fight loaded his gun until it was full of unfired loads, and forgot to put a cap on. Then he discovered his mistake, and put on a cap, and would have blown off his own head by firing all the stuff out at once, when Captain Gowdy saw what he was doing and snatched the gun away from him calling him a damned fool, and broke the stock off the musket on the ground. There were plenty of guns for Will to select from by that time which were not in use, so he picked up another and made a new start; but not for long. After the guns were issued to us, we stood there on the bank, and lounged about on the landing, waiting for the issue of cartridges. An orderly came to me with Magnus following him, and gave me the captain's order to report to him in the cabin of the transport which lay tied up at the river bank. We looked at each other in wonder, but followed the orderly into the cabin, where we stood at attention. The captain returned our salutes, dismissed the orderly, and after his footsteps had gone out of hearing, turned to us.