part of soldiers for such reading until I saw it with my own eyes. 'Give me a paper,' 'Give me a paper,' 'Give me a tract,' 'Give me a book,' is the impatient cry. Very frequently ladies have sent tracts and books to my tent, and on the Sabbath-day I have taken them myself to distribute, and I have scarcely ever had to ask a soldier to receive one of them. Indeed, if you give to one or two, the others will feel jealous if neglected." *

"I am besieged by those who want something good to read. In my rounds I am followed at my elbow. Please, sir, can you spare me one?' They hail me from a distance: 'Are you coming down this way, chaplain?' It is a pleasant thing to pause in these travels through the parish and look back upon the white waves that rise in the wake of one's course. Sports are hushed, swearing is charmed away, all are reading, Sabbath has come."

In some regiments, where the officers co-operated with chaplains to elevate the morals of men, few oaths were heard.

One day General Howard started out with a handful of leaflets on swearing, with the intention of giving one to every man whom he heard using profane language. He went from regiment to regiment and from brigade to brigade of his division, and returned to his tent without hearing an oath.

"I have been all through my division to-day," he said, "visiting the hospitals, and I have n't heard a single man swear. Is n't it strange?"

One of the citizens of Falmouth came to General Howard for

a guard.

"You favored secession, I suppose," said the General.

"I stuck for the Union till Virginia went out of the Union. I had to go with her."

"You have a son in the Rebel army.'

"Yes, sir; but he enlisted of his own accord." "The soldiers steal your chickens, you say?"

"Yes, they take everything they can lay their hands upon, and I want a guard to protect my property."

"If you and all your neighbors had voted against secession, you would not need a guard. No, sir, you can't have

*General Howard's Address at Washington.

one.

When you have given as much to your country as I have I will give you one, but not till then," said the General, pointing to his empty sleeve. He lost his right arm at Fair Oaks.

It was a gloomy winter, but the Sanitary and Christian Commissions gave their powerful aid towards maintaining the health and morals and spirits of the army. The Christian Commission opened six stations, from which they dispensed supplies of books and papers and food for the sick, not regularly furnished by the medical department. Religious meetings were held nightly, conducted by the soldiers, marked by deep solemnity. Veterans who had passed through all the trials and temptations of a soldier's life gave testimony of the peace and joy they had in believing in Jesus. Others asked what they should do to obtain the same comfort. Many who had faced death unflinchingly at Williamsburg, Fair Oaks, Malvern, and Antietam, who had been ever indifferent to the claim of religion, became like little children as they listened to their comrades singing,

"Rock of Ages, cleft for me,

Let me hide myself in thee."

It was not sentimentalism. A soldier who has been through a half-dozen battles is the last person in the world to indulge in sentiment. He above all men understands reality. Thus led by the sweet music and the fervent prayers of their comrades, they rejoiced in the hope that they had found forgiveness of sins through the blood of the Son of God.

At Falmouth, an old tobacco-warehouse on the bank of the river, within hail of the Rebel pickets, was cleared of rubbish, the broken ceiling and windows covered with canvas, a rude pulpit erected, where on Sabbath afternoons and every evening meetings were held, a Sabbath school was organized, also a day school. One of the soldiers established a school for the instruction of the children of the village. Often in the calm twilight of the mild winter days the Rebel picket pacing his beat upon the opposite bank stopped, and leaning upon his gun, listened to the hymns of devotion wafted on the evening air.

He could have sent a bullet whistling through the building,

but there was a mutual understanding among the pickets not to fire, and so the meetings were undisturbed.

In the Forty-Fourth New York Regiment, known as the Ellsworth Avengers, were two young soldiers whose hearts were woven together with Christian zeal. They had no chaplain; but they established a prayer-meeting, holding it beside a stump, in a retired place. They obtained permission of the colonel to build a log chapel. They had to draw the logs a mile, but they had faith and energy, and laid out a building sixteen by thirty-two feet square. Rev. Mr. Alvord, the agent of a Tract Society, gives the following account of their labors.

"The first logs were heavy, and hardly any one to help. Their plan at first was not very definite. They would lay down a log and then look and plan by the eye. Another log was wearily drawn and put on. The crowd came round to quiz and joke. 'Are you to have it finished before the world ends?' Fixing up to leave?' 'How does your saloon get on?' The more serious, in pity, tried to discourage. There was already an order out to move; what 's the use?' "Who wants meetings?' But these two Christian boys (S. and L.) toiled on like Noah, amidst the scoffs of the multitude. The edifice slowly rose; volunteers lent a hand. The Christian men of the regiment became interested. (There were forty or fifty in all, eighteen or twenty of whom at length aided in the work.) A sufficient height was reached, and first a roof of brush, and afterwards of patched ponchos, was put on, and meetings began, or rather they began when it was only an open pen. * In a few days Burnside's advance came, and the regiment left for the field. In their absence, plunderers stripped the cabin, and carried off, a portion of its material; but on the return of our troops the same busy hands and hearts of faith were again at work. A sutler gave them the old canvas cover of his large tent, which he was about to cut up to shelter his horses with, and lo, it precisely fitted the roof of the meeting-house, not an inch to spare!

"Well, there it stands, to his glory and the credit of their perseverance. (It took about one hundred logs to build it.) You should have seen their eyes shine, as, here in my tent for tracts, they were one day giving me its history, and you should have been with us last evening. The little pulpit made of empty box boards, two chandeliers suspended from the ridge-pole of cross-sticks, wreathed with ivy, and in the socketed ends four adamant candles, each burning brilliantly. Festoons of ivy and dead men's fingers' (a species of woodbine called by this name), looped gracefully along the sides of the room, and in the centre

-

from chandelier to chandelier, their deep green, with the fine brown bark of the pine logs, and white canvas above, striped with its rafters, sweetly contrasting. Below, a perfect pack of soldiers, in the 'Avengers' uniform, squatted low upon the pole seats, beneath which was a carpet of evergreen sprays, all silent, uncovered, respectful; as the service opened, you could have heard a pin fall. There was nothing here to make a noise. Pew-doors, psalm-books, rustling silks, or groined arches reverberating the slightest sound of hand or footfall, there were none. Only the click of that wooden latch, and a gliding figure, like a stealthy vidette, squeezing in among the common mass, indicated the late comer. The song went up from the deep voices of men, do you know the effect? and before our service closed, tears rolled down from the faces of men. To be short, every evening of the week this house is now filled with some service, four of which are religious. When they can have no preaching, these soldiers meet for prayer.

"I stole in one evening, lately, when they were at these devotions; prayer after prayer successively was offered, in earnest, humblest tones, before rising from their knees; the impenitent looking on solemnly. Officers were present and took part, and seldom have I seen such manifest tokens that God is about to appear in power. Opposition there is none. The whole regiment looks upon the house now as a matter of pride, encourage all the meetings. It is attractive to visitors, and, when not used for religious purposes, is occupied by lyceum debates, singing clubs, &c., &c. How those two Christian boys do enjoy it! Said one of them to me, 'We have been paid for all our labor a thousand times over."

Thus, fighting, marching, singing, praying, teaching the ignorant, trusting in God, never wavering in their faith of the ultimate triumph of right, they passed the weary winter.

CHAPTER XIII.

CHANCELLORSVILLE.

GENERAL BURNSIDE having accepted the command of the army with reluctance, was relieved at his own request, and General Hooker was appointed his successor. He made a thorough reorganization. The system of grand divisions was abolished, and the corps organization adopted. The First Corps was commanded by General Sickles, the Fifth by General Meade, the Sixth by General Sedgwick, the Eleventh by General Howard, and the Twelfth by General Slocum. The cavalry was consolidated into a single corps, under General Stoneman. General Hooker intended to use the cavalry as it had not been used up to that time.

The vigor manifested by General Hooker in the reorganization, and the confidence of the soldiers in him as a commander, gave new hope to the army. He reduced the number of wagons in the trains, and informed the officers that they would be allowed only a limited amount of baggage. He issued orders that the troops should have rations of fresh bread, cabbages, and onions, in abundance. Merit was commended. Officers and men who had proved themselves efficient were allowed leave of absence, before the opening of the spring campaign. Regiments which had shown incapacity and loose discipline were allowed no favors. Only eleven regiments in the whole army were highly commended. Some were severely censured as wanting those qualities which make a good regiment. This administration of affairs soon produced a perceptible change in the spirits of the men.

There were frequent rains, which prevented any movement during the winter; but General Hooker was not idle. He was obtaining information, from scouts and spies, of Lee's position and the number of his troops. He kept his designs so well to himself that even his most trusted officers were not aware of