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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.

headquarters without your musket.” It was a very singular thing that many of the men said that Nyce and I resembled each other so much they could not tell us apart. I was frequently saluted as “Nyce” and he by my name, though he was nearly six feet high and much heavier. I went to the Colonel's tent and upon carrying some orders around to the different companies in the dark, was dismissed for the night, about nine o'clock with instructions to report again in the morning.

(Wednesday, July 22d.) The Major took the Captains and Lieutenants off some distance to drill them in the manual, and I was sent to order the best drilled Sergeant in the companies to take the men out for the same purpose. At eight o'clock, at guard mounting, I was relieved by Smith, a son of the President of the Reading Railroad. Scheetz was the Sergeant selected in our company, and he drilled us in the following style: marched two or three fields off to be comfortably out of sight, formed under a large tree, “shoulder arms, order arms, shoulder arms, stack arms, break ranks, march,” and we lay there on the grass until the two hours were over, and then returned to the tents. It suited the men exactly. We paid up for it, however, in the afternoon on battalion drill under the Lieutenant Colonel. During the day a great many women came into camp with baskets of pies and molasses cakes for sale. Nearly all were sold, but they were miserable, unwholesome things. The crusts were almost as tough as sole leather, and the contents of the poorest kind as a general thing. In the night Nyce was taken sick with something like cramp, and as he suffered a great deal of pain I took a tin cup and went to the Surgeon's tent for some medicine for him. It was extremely dark, but knowing the direction of the Surgeon's quarters I found them without much trouble except tumbling over some