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The Advent of our General of Division—Camp near Frederick City, Maryland—The Old Revolutionary Barracks at Frederick—An Irish Corporal's Recollections of the First Regiment of Volunteers from Pennsylvania—Punishment in the Old First.

"Our new Division-General, boys!" exclaimed a sergeant of the 210th Pennsylvania Volunteers, whose attention and head were turned at the clatter of horses' hoofs to the rear. "I heard an officer say that he would be along to-day, and I recognise his description."

The men, although weary and route-worn, straightened up, dressed their ranks, and as the General and Staff rode past, some enthusiastic soldier proposed cheers for our new Commander. They started with a will, but the General's doubtful look, as interpreted by the men, gave little or no encouragement, and the effort ended in a few ragged discordant yells.

"He is a strange-looking old covey any how," said one of the boys in an undertone. "Did you notice that red muffler about his neck, and how pinched up and crooked his hat is, and that odd-looking moustache, and how savagely he cocks his eyes through his spectacles?"

"They say," replied the sergeant, "that we are the first troops that he has commanded. He was a staff officer before in the Topographical Corps. Didn't you notice the T.C. on his coat buttons?"

"And is he going to practise upon us?" blurts out a bustling red-faced little Irish corporal. "Be Jabers, that accounts for the crooked cow road we have marched through the last day—miles out of the way, and niver a chance for coffee."

"You are too fast, Terence," said the sergeant; "if he belongs to the Topographical Corps, he ought at least to know the roads."

"And didn't you say not two hours ago that we were entirely out of the way, and that we had been wandering as crooked as the creek that flows back of the old town we are from, and nearly runs through itself in a dozen places?"

The sergeant admitted that he had said so, but stated that perhaps the General was not to blame, and added somewhat jocosely: "At any rate the winding of the creek makes those beautiful walks we have so much enjoyed in summer evenings."

"Beautiful winding walks! is it, sergeant! Shure and whin you have your forty pound wait upon your back, forty rounds of lead and powdher in your cartridge-box, and twenty more in your pocket, three days' rations in your haversack, a musket on your shoulder, and army brogans on your throtters, you are just about the first man that I know of to take straight cuts."

It was a close warm day near the middle of September. The roads were dusty and the troops exhausted. Two days previously the brigade to which they belonged had left the pleasantest of camps, called "Camp Whipple" in honor of their former and favorite Division Commander. Situated in an orchard on the level brow of a hill that overlooked Washington, the imposing Capitol, the broad expanse of the Potomac dotted with frequent craft, the many national buildings, and scenery of historic interest, the men left it with regret, but carried with them recollections that often in times of future depression revived their patriotic ardor.

Over dusty roads, through the muddy aqueduct of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, hurried on over the roughly paved streets of Georgetown, and through the suburbs of Washington, they finally halted for the night, and, as it chanced through lack of orders, for the succeeding day also, near Meridian Hill. Under orders to join the Fifth Army Corps commanded by Major-General Fitz John Porter, to which the Division had been previously assigned, the march was resumed on the succeeding day, which happened to be Sunday, and in the afternoon of which our chapter opens.

A march of another day brought the Brigade to a recent Rebel camp ground. Traces of their occupancy were found not only in their depredations in the neighborhood destructive of railroad bridges, but also in letters and wall-paper envelopes adorned with the lantern-jawed phiz of Jefferson Davis. The latter were sought after with avidity as soon as ranks were broken and tents pitched; the more eagerly perhaps for the reason that during the greater part of their previous month of service they had been frequently within sound of rebel cannon, although but once under their fire. During the previous day, in fact, they had marched to the music of the artillery of South Mountain.

That night awakened lively recollections in the mind of Terence McCarty, our lively little Irish corporal. His duty for the time as corporal of a relief gave him ample opportunity to indulge them. He had belonged to the old First Pennsylvania Regiment of three months men, that a little over a year before, when Maryland was halting between loyalty and disloyalty, had spent its happiest week of service in the yard of the revolutionary barracks in the city of Frederick. Terence was but two short miles from the spot. Brimfull of the memories, he turned to a comrade, who had also belonged to the First, and who with others chanced to stand near.

"I say, Jack! Do you recollect the ould First and Frederick, and do you know that we are but two miles and short ones at that from the blissed ould white-washed barracks, full of all kind of quare guns and canteens looking like barrels cut down; and the Parade Ground where our ould Colonel used to come his 'Briskly, men! Briskly,' when he'd put us through the manual, and where so many ladies would come to see our ivolutions, and where they set the big table for us on the Fourth, and where—"

"Hold on, corporal! you can't give that week's history to-night."

"I was only going to obsarve, Jack, that I feel like a badly used man."

"How so, Terence?"

"Why you see nearly ivery officer, commissioned and non-commissioned, of the ould First has been promoted. The Colonel was too ould for service, or my head on it, he would have had a star. Just look at the captains by way of sample—Company A, a Lieutenant-Colonel, expecting and desarving an eagle ivery day; Company B, a Lieutenant-Colonel; Company C, our own Lieutenant-Colonel; Company D, a Brigadier for soldierly looks, daring, and dash; Company E, a Captain in an aisy berth in the regular service; Company F, a Colonel; Company G, a Major; Company H, a Lieutenant-Colonel; Company I, I have lost sight of, and the lion-hearted captain of Company K, doing a lion's share of work at the head of a regiment in Tennessee. Now, Jack, the under officers and many privates run pretty much the same way, but not quite as high. Bad luck to me, I was fifth corporal thin and am eighth now—promoted crab-fashion. Fortune's wheel gives me many a turn, Jack! but always stops with me on the lower side."

"I saw you on the upper side once," retorted Jack roguishly.

"And whin? may I ask."

"When, do you say? why, when you took about half a canteen too much, and that same old colonel had you tied on the upper side of a barrel on the green in front of the barracks."

"Bad luck to an ill-natured memory, Jack, for stirring that up," replied the corporal, breaking in upon the laughter that followed, "but I now recollect, it was the day before you slipped the guard whin the colonel gave you a barrel uniform with your head through the end, and kept me for two mortal long hours in the hot sun, a tickling of you under the nose with a straw, and daubing molasses on your chaps to plaze the flies, to the great admiration of a big crowd of ladies and gentlemen."

Jack subsided, and the hearty laughter at the corporal's ready retort was broken a few minutes later by a loud call for the corporal of the guard, which hurried Terence away, dispersed the crowd, and might as well end this chapter.