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not re-enlisted as veterans were mustered out, and made their way home as best they could. On arriving in New York, they drew up and adopted a series of resolutions. They began by rehearsing an order of Col. Abbot, dated May 21, urging them to "stand by their colors, and not march to the rear to the sound of the enemy's cannon." They then resolved,—

"That those who can not appreciate thirty-six months of service would also fail to appreciate thirty-eight or thirty-nine months; and that we indignantly denounce those who would attempt to disgrace us for retiring to our homes and friends, from whom we have been absent three long years, as ingrates worthy only of our deepest and heartiest contempt."

The reason for their non re-enlistment seems to be stated in the charge against Col Abbot:

"That he has spared no pains to place over us a military aristocracy, subjecting us to every variety of petty annoyance, to show his own power, and take away our manhood; subjecting men to inhuman and illegal punishments for appealing to him for justice; disgracing others for attempting to obtain commissions in colored regiments; . . . about May 4 ordering his heavy artillery men who had not re-enlisted, into the ditch for the remainder of their term of service, thus placing us on a level with prisoners under sentence of court-martial; and finally capping the climax by leaving us to the tender mercies of provost-marshals, turning us loose on the world, without pay, without officers, without transportation, without rations, and without our colors."

They further presented the following view of the situa tion :

“That when the able-bodied men of our land have taken their turn of three years in the national service, if an army is still needed to enforce the laws of the land, none will sooner fall into the line than those who sprang to arms at the first note of danger; that no class of men have a deeper interest in the present struggle than those who have carried musket and knapsack for the past three years; and that we will not allow abuse from superiors to interfere with our duty to our country."

They then offered their "heartiest thanks" to Gen. R. O. Tyler for his services as their old commander, and to Gen. Butler and the various officers who had helped them home. They were received in Connecticut with the honors due to their patriotic services.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

The Fourteenth at Stevensburg. - The Affair at Mine Run. - How to build WinterQuarters, and how to enjoy them. Fight at Morton's Ford. - First Connecticut Cavalry joins the Army of the Potomac.- Grant crosses the Rapidan. - Struggle of the Wilderness. Flank March to Spottsylvania.- Terrible Fighting. - The Second Connecticut Artillery (Nineteenth) comes up. · Gen. Robert O. Tyler commands

a Division. Spirited Contest. - The First Cavalry in Front of Richmond. — To the North Anna. Another Flank Movement. - Death of Gen. John Sedgwick. - His Character and Public Services.

ORAGING and picketing, with considerable rest, and now and then a fight, the Fourteenth waited in Virginia, the only Connecticut regiment in the active Army of the Potomac. The State could not have been more gallantly represented. Of its life during the fall of 1863, Capt. Samuel Fisk ("Dunn Browne") wrote, "Our regiment has had its share of the marches and countermarches, the picket-duty, the fatigues, the skirmishes, the night-retreats, and the whole ever-varying experience of camp and field life, in the Army of the Potomac for the last two months. We picketed along the Rapidan for some three weeks; left the front with the 2d Corps on the 6th of October; bivouacked near Culpeper till the 11th; crossed, recrossed, and crossed again the Rappahannock in apparently the very profitless maneuvering of Oct. 12 and 13; and, after a long and fatiguing night and day march, participated in the brilliant skirmishes of the 14th of October. Our regiment did its share in repulsing the sudden attack of the enemy at Bristoe Station. Our loss was twenty-six killed and wounded; mostly in the first fifteen minutes of the fight. It would have done your heart good to see the steadiness and alacrity with which our men, marching by the flank, faced to the front, and advanced

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in line of battle at the double-quick, across the railroad, and into the woods whence the fire opened on us, without knowing at all how many rebels we should find there; without having had a moment's preparation, or thought of being at tacked. Scarcely a man faltered, save from the fatigue of the double-quick, which few can sustain for any long distance with knapsacks, rations, and equipments on, in heavy marching order. The enemy were driven out of sight, five hundred prisoners and a battery captured, and the skirmish over, almost before we really began to understand that a fight was going on at all; then we lay along the track of the railroad till ten P.M., and withdrew.

"Oh! that was indeed a fatiguing night-march to Centreville, fording two deep streams; plunging through the mud; stumbling over stones and stumps; standing a half-hour at a time, with your eyes closing in spite of yourself, waiting for the head of the column to pass an obstacle; getting mixed up with wagons and artillery; and finally, after wading Bull Run (from two to three feet deep), lying down about four o'clock in the morning, on the grass, in the drizzling rain to sleep. We didn't take much cold, because a cold is produced, I believe, by a want of equilibrium in the system in respect to dampness or heat; and we were so thoroughly wet and cold all over that there was no partial process possible. Such is the soldier's life in the field.

"Our new recruits (substitutes) are proving themselves generally very good soldiers; and the regiment is, on the whole, in good condition, with its complement of officers nearly filled, and a fine, long line at dress-parade, contrasting very favorably with the corporal's guard, or a few more, that gathered round our colors a few months since.

"I have just burned my bedstead to cook my breakfast with, to such extremities am I reduced. Fortunately our furniture hereabouts is not very costly. My bedstead above mentioned consisted of seven three-cornered rails from a Virginia fence, laid down side by side in the mud near the fire, on which my lieutenant and I spread our blanket, and slept very sweetly, with a rubber blanket over us, through the steady, heavy rain that improved the darkness of the

night to come down upon us unseen, but not unfelt. This morning, ashamed to look us in the face after such deeds of darkness, the rain has entirely ceased; and the face of Nature beams on us as smilingly and roguishly as if the dripping doings of the night were an exquisite joke. Well, it seems to us much more like a joke than it did, as the creases made by the rails are getting rubbed out of our sides and legs, and the clothes are mostly dried.

"Picketing is pretty good fun after all. How many of you are coming out here to try it? O my dear readers! there are at least a full thousand of you,- a strong, able-bodied regiment among you,- who certainly ought to be here, who can't possibly get an exemption-certificate from your own conscience.

"I would not bring one recruit to our ranks by misrepresenting the case to him. Soldiering is a hard business, the best you can make of it. I have laid a good deal of stone fence, dug many a rod of ditch, worked at carpentering and all sorts of farming, been a bookbinder, set up type; sawed a eord of oak-wood three times in two, split and piled it, besides getting my lessons and reciting them (after a fashion), all in one day; I've taught a big district school of little urchins of the Yankee persuasion, which is harder than any of the above; and I've attended three sewing-societies and made five and twenty calls of an afternoon, which is hardest of all: but, of all the different kinds of manual labor that I ever attempted, the business of marching with an army in heavy marching order, and on rations of hard-tack and pork, is the most exhausting. There is very little poetry, and a great deal of hard work, about an active campaign. It is hard to be a private, hard to be an officer, hard to march, hard to fight, hard to be out on picket in the rain, hard to live on short rations and be exposed to all sorts of weather, hard to be wounded and lose legs and arms, and get ugly scars on one's face, hard to think of lying down in death without the gentle hand of love to smooth one's brow: but there is just one thing that makes all things easy; and that is the spirit of Christian patriotism.

"The army is going to do up the work, whether you re

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inforce us or not. It is for you to say whether you will come in to share the glory of it. We have worked for Uncle Sam's thirteen dollars a month, and spent that to eke out our monotonous rations, and replace the clothing we have been compelled to throw away in battle, or drop in wearisome marches, till the worship of the almighty dollar is driven out of us any way; and if you prefer to stay at home on your farms and with your merchandise, and trade in oxen, and marry wives, and revel in luxuries, and clothe your wives with contracts at the expense of the brave soldiers who are fighting your battles,-why, be the money and ease yours; save your precious legs and lives; add house to house, and acre to acre; pay commutation-money, and avoid drafts; wrangle over party politics, and settle yourselves in fat offices. And be the hardships ours; ours the wormy crackers and the rusty pork; ours the marches, the hard blows, the wasting sicknesses; ours the longings for the dear loved ones at home, the wives and lit tle ones, who are watching and waiting for our returning steps with unutterable anxiety: be it ours to fight all the longer because you refuse to help; be it ours to come home all the fewer that you may stay at home the more and the merrier. Still will we not murmur at our share, nor willingly exchange it for yours. We will hold it a proud privilege to go home poor on our country's pay; to carry on our persons the scars of our country's service; to point to the marks of our blood on our country's torn but triumphant banner; to have it written on our headstone, 'He was a soldier of the Union.""

On the 27th of November, Meade moved to turn Lee's right at Mine Run; and arrangements were made for Sedgwick to assault on the right, and Warren on the left, early on the morning of the 30th. But the tentative movements that accompanied the advance across the Rapidan had informed Lee of his adversary's intentions, and he had arrayed his forces accordingly. The morning of attack found his main army drawn up on the right behind impenetrable abatis, and defended by strong intrenchments. The Fourteenth was conspicuous in the line of battle. The brave rank and file felt that assault would result fatally. "Knowing