departure it is only fit that I should detain you long enough to commit to your keeping this proof of the interest which the city of your first encampment cherishes in your welfare, and of the devotion of her heart of hearts to the cause which your arms defend. You will receive it with the assurance that from our firesides and domestic altars patriotism, piety, the aspirations of all that is fair, and the coöperation of all that is manly, will follow you to the field. You march amid grand and solemn events. Our government, our capital, the flag of our renown, our unity, our existence, is in peril. The fountains of the great deep are broken up; we are in civil war. But let no one suppose, therefore, that our heritage is passing away. The tides of history are not to be turned back. Though rebellion, blazing rebellion, rear its banner from the capes of Virginia, round the gulf, and midway up the valley, the people are making a life struggle for their national unity, and they can and they will preserve it. We are not to lose our national identity. We shall still continue to date from George Washington, and his achievements and his glory. We are not yet transferring the dust of two generations of free and united America to its grave, and closing the annals. The bell of time is indeed striking an epoch, but we do not believe that it is opening before us another, which is unknown and undiscernible. There is a thread of Providence, of history, of civilization, which connects the America that is past to the America that is to come. American constitutional government is a conviction, an idea, a principle that is imperishable, for it rests on the hearts of its people. It may for a time be obstructed, but it cannot be broken or destroyed; and from momentary disaster or dishonor it will rise with redoubled majesty for its more certain vindication. The loyalty of the Border is even now arraying itself with the North and the West for the great peril. The land of Clay and of Webster is already beginning to vibrate with the same note of defiance and preparation. The bugles of Kentucky and of Massachusetts will soon be sounded together in the field.

MR. COMMANDER, MEN OF FRANKLIN, AND BERKSHIRE, AND HAMPDEN, AND WORCESTER, -I invoke you to contemplate the position of the proud Commonwealth you represent. Such has been her response to the crisis which is upon us, that every where the unsubstantial cloud has been lifted from her name, and she has risen as by enchantment to the applause of states. The muse of history has with a new title assigned the Nineteenth of April, among the holy days of her calendar. The genius of her people reopened the highway to

the capital. The gallantry of her sons will ever be repeated at the gates of Baltimore, never again to be closed, because our dead speak trumpet-tongued to the ear and the heart of the nation. Massachusetts in her age is retreading the pathways of her youth. As it was in the beginning, so now again her men are found at every disposable post of service and danger under the government; and wherever that flag shall be unfurled there they will be found to-day and henceforth till this war shall terminate. Look on them and behold them as they have taken their place in the procession of events. They made halt at Annapolis, proud and sullen in her desolation, awoke old Ironsides from its sleep and danger, and planted their batteries in the face of delusion and secession. They pitched their tents among the oaks of Fortress Monroe, and offered the greeting of the Star Spangled Banner to the hospitality of Virginia. They took up their abode in the chill and damp of McHenry, and welcomed Baltimore back to her nationality. They seized and held the gateway to the Ohio, and exchanged the challenge of their sentinels with the Northwest. They emerged from the blood-stained ravines of Manassas, and no wounds were found upon their backs nor any tarnish upon their arms. Such you have beheld them. And now you go forth to take the place of some of them, and to coöperate with others. Wherever you shall go in this sublime service, to Harper's Ferry, or Baltimore, or Fortress Monroe, or Washington, on this or the other side of the upper or lower Potomac, to the drill of camp life, or where the "bloody sign of battle is hung out,” - there you will find that your brothers and ours have gone before, or are already on the ground to greet you, there you will find your own dear old Massachusetts promising you her guardian angel care, only beseeching you in your life, and if need be in your death, to honor this historic symbol. Let these colors be now unfurled. We swear by them. In the presence of each other before men and angels, we renew our allegiance to The Flag of Our Union. Let others bestow their complacent gaze upon only half a flag with a few lost stars; we desire to breathe our last sigh under these azure folds, with not a star or a stripe erased. Let traitors do battle as they may, with the bayonet leaves of the palmetto floating over them, and in fellowship with the resonant sound of the rattle-snake it is worth all of life to you to march only under the old national en sign, and to die, if so it please Providence, amid the cadence of the national anthem. Men of the Twenty-first, the banner is yours. Reverence it in the hour of security; honor it in the clustering battle!

And it is the prayer of your friends, from whose hands the gift has come to you, that Almighty God will preserve your lives, and restore you to Massachusetts and to those you love!

RESPONSE BY COLONEL MORSE.

Colonel Morse, on receiving the flag, responded as follows: "COLONEL BULLOCK AND LADIES OF WORCESTER: It is with the gravest emotions that I now thank you, one and all, for this noble gift you have this day presented. We shall ever cherish it as a token of your love for us, and ever remember you as our noblest and dearest friends. We shall ever hold up this standard as an emblem of your affection, and protect it with all the strength of our arms, and not a man of us will ever turn his back upon it. This flag which we have loved and nurtured, which has protected us on land and sea, and will ever protect us, God willing, all the days of our lives, shall be the herald of our charge upon the traitors, and be held up to inspire us to fight the battles of our country, in defence of its glorious institutions. And never shall it return to you till it floats on land and sea, in every section of our once united confederacy of States. But, ladies, it is not to me, but the officers and soldiers of the Twenty-first regiment, to whom you have presented this precious token. Again I thank you, in behalf of the men under my command, and take leave of you with the assurance that you will never hear of any of us deserting or dishonoring this flag."

Ranks were broken for a last half hour with mothers, wives, sisters, and the other dear ones that bound our hearts to home; then the regiment was re-formed, and marched proudly through the city in column of sections to the Norwich depot. Leaving Worcester about five o'clock in the afternoon, we were received with much enthusiasm and kindness as we passed through the different towns, took the boat at Norwich, and reached Jersey City early in the morning of the 24th.

Before leaving Worcester, the men were allowed to fill their haversacks with hard bread, but as a general rule preferred to take the chance of getting something better on the road, particularly as it was understood that an ample supply of sandwiches, made by the kind ladies of Worcester, were to be carried in bulk; but a thousand big fellows with healthy appetites

will eat a good many sandwiches; and most of the regiment were quite hungry when we reached Jersey City, and still more hungry when we took the cars for Philadelphia about noon, having breakfasted on one sandwich and a cup of coffee. All along the road we were greeted with cheers, waving handkerchiefs, and frequent bouquets of flowers. At half-past eight in the evening we arrived at Philadelphia, where we were received with hearty kindness, and welcomed to a splendid supper at the Cooper Shop Saloon. The ladies and gentlemen who waited on us seemed to take real pleasure in seeing the men eat, and we all did eat without reserve. None of us will ever forget the whole-hearted generous kindness with which we were received in Philadelphia. Supper over, we returned to the cars, and remained in them at a halt for some four hours, the tediousness of the delay being however a good deal relieved by the crowds of women who surrounded the cars "bidding good-by to the soldiers ;" and some of the officers (I can answer for one captain, at any rate) had their attention fully occupied in trying to diminish the amount of firewater which the men so inclined were imbibing and stowing away for future use. Two members of Company H, Privates Merriam King and Metcalf B. Marsh, who were badly hurt by a moving car, were left in hospital at Philadelphia.1 We parted from our kind friends after midnight, and reached Havre-de-Grace at about five o'clock on the morning of Sunday, the 25th. Here, the report spread through the regi ment that a message had come from Baltimore that we would have to fight our way through the city, and as ball cartridges were served out to us for the first time we thought that it was probably true. We arrived in Baltimore early in the forenoon, and filed quietly from the cars into the street. Though we had not been at all alarmed at the prospect of having a chance to deal with a Baltimore mob, we, of course, were very glad to be received in a peaceful if not friendly manner. Nobody appeared to have us on their minds for either good or

1 Both King and Marsh were discharged from the service by reason of their injuries, December 31, 1861.- Ed.

ill. Colonel Morse went to report to General Dix, in command at Baltimore, for orders; and we waited hour after hour in the hot sun for his return; at last he came and informed us that we were to stay in Baltimore; the remainder of our carefully husbanded Massachusetts sandwiches were issued to the men, who were all hungry, and some of them (those who had put no hard tack in their haversacks at Worcester) even faint from want of food, having had nothing to eat since their supper in Philadelphia. Formed in a long marching square with a platoon front, having the field and staff inside (a rather absurd, though bellicose looking formation, invented I believe by Colonel Morse), we left the railroad station at halfpast three in the afternoon, and with fixed bayonets and loaded guns marched through the crowded streets of the city to Patterson Park, receiving neither welcome nor insult on the way.

We found the park an unpleasant dusty place, and Colonel Morse kept marching us round and round until we were nearly ready to drop; at last he gave the welcome order to halt, and we at once set about measuring out the camp and pitching our tents; tents pitched after a fashion, the weary men lay down in the dust, and slept without waiting for supper. Our camp in Patterson Park was named Camp Lincoln, in honor of the President.

On the 26th, the colonel impressed upon the regiment the fact that we were now in the enemy's country, and the necessity of constant vigilance against attack. To make it certain in case of a night attack that we should have an understood signal for prompt turning out, he gave us the word "Boston" as an alarm cry, to be used only in a case of real necessity. As a natural result, the silence of midnight was broken by the cry "Boston; then a gun was fired; the sentinels all yelled Boston," and so did the men generally as they tumbled out of their tents to form line, with the long roll beating vigorously. It wasn't a scary alarm, and when the colonel found that most of the men were laughing in the ranks he sent the regiment back to quarters. The colonel suspected Captain

66