powder as they were when they would have given him a canteen full at once.
I confess, after all, that my anticipation of the happiness I should experience upon such a day as this, was not realized; I can assure the reader that there was as much sorrow as joy transfused on the occasion. We had lived together as a family of brothers for several years (setting aside some little family squabbles, like most other families,) had shared with each other the hardships, dangers and sufferings incident to a soldier's life, had sympathized with each other in trouble and sickness; had assisted in bearing each other's burdens, or strove to make them lighter by council and advice; had endeavoured to conceal each other's faults, or make them appear in as good a light as they would bear. In short, the soldiery, each in his particular circle of acquaintance, were as strict a band of brotherhood as Masons, and, I believe, as faithful to each other. And now we were to be (the greater part of us) parted forever; as unconditionally separated, as though the grave lay between us. This, I say, was the case with the most, I will not say all; there were as many genuine misanthropists among the soldiers, according to numbers, as of any other class of people whatever; and some in our corps of Miners; but we were young men, and had warm hearts. I question if there was a corps in the army that parted with more regret than ours did, the New-Englanders in particular, Ah! it was a serious time.
Some of the soldiers went off for home the same day that their fetters were knocked off; others staid and got their final settlement certificates, which they sold to procure decent clothing and money sufficient to enable them to pass with decency through the country, and to appear something like themselves when they arrived among their friends. I was among those; I went up the river to the Wallkill, and staid some time. When I returned to West point the certificates were not ready, and it was uncertain when they would be. I had waited so long I was loath to leave there without them. I had a friend and acquaintance in one of the Massachusetts regiments, who had five or six months to serve in the three years service, there was also in the same regiment, a man who had about the same space of time to serve, and who
