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select a better criterion of the man, in what are often counted as the trivial elements of character, than the box under consideration. The generous, the profligate, the stolid, and the selfish soldier, all received their boxes; and their names on the covers were not plainer of discernment than the analysis of their inner selves which they inscribed in tell-tale characters all over those interesting boxes.

To some of the men a box really seemed a source of unending torment. They never appeared to take a moment's comfort with the delectations sent them. They were evidently in great dread of the sin of covetousness on the part of their comrades. They were afraid they would have to give away a bite of some delicacy, and every such morsel actually extorted came like a tooth from a sound jaw. Such a one always managed to eat alone while the miserly hoarded contents lasted, and he would make a small box last ten times as long as the ordinary soldier would a big one. He isolated himself, contrived to get his

rations when his tent-mates were out: he never allowed himself a generous taste of his own good things, but endeavored to extend them, like his own enlistment, "for three years, or during the war." He looked mean, and he must have felt mean, whenever he approached that box, which he secured by every imaginable device; and still he carried a burden heavier than musket, accoutrements, and rations combined, whenever he left camp on duty: he was anxious for his box, he worried about that box; and he was only relieved from misery when he had reluctantly swallowed the last ounce of butter, the final bit of cheese, or the bottom spoonful of honey. That which so ennobled the many, both in the sending and the receiving; which voiced the freest generosity and proclaimed the prodigal resources of the land for whose integrity he fought—all this, by a patent and painful contrast, only served to belittle such a man until he shrank so small among his fellows that one of his own well-guarded fruit-jars seemed of ample dimensions in which to preserve him as an abiding curiosity, a rare evolution of the war. A curiosity, for he was neither a representative nor a common character. There were but few like him in any com

pany, and in some companies possibly there were none. But he was to be found in every battalion, more or less, and helped to round out the multifarious phases of humanity aggregated, and to some extent harmonized, in a volunteer regiment. He must have been the man who used, at home, to stop his clock at night so that it would not wear out so fast, - said they "didn't want to know the time nights, and it would save the works."

Among all the turmoils and consternations incident to a sudden and unexpected move, the box was no insignificant element in the general perplexity. When a regiment has settled itself in winter quarters, has built and furnished its stockades, and in a thousand neat and soldierly ways put the stamp of cosiness and homeliness upon its rude but really comfortable tent-roofed cabins, it is hard indeed to have the orderly poke his head inside the doors after nine o'clock at night, and simply announce, "Be ready to march to-morrow morning at nine o'clock." It was enough. First, silence; then a storm of indignation, followed soon by a roaring tide of jollity; for the reserve thought and force of the Union volunteers were always exercised to make the best of all adverse situations. In ten minutes the entire camp was ablaze with bonfires; being fed with floors, uncouth tables, all sorts of improvised camp-furniture and fixtures, and indeed by every available bit of wood. Articles which half an hour earlier were hoarded with jealous care are now tossed to the flames with glee and shouts.

An army about to break camp after a long stay presents, especially at night, a spectacle weird and grand. A tumult of most orderly confusion surges from headquarters to wagon-park and mule-corral. There is a general tearing up and stowing of all that is to go, and a general destruction of all that must be left behind. Friendly negroes in the vicinity "tote" off miscellaneous property to their full gorging: sly importunings and slyer trades are negotiated with avaricious teamsters in order to assure the transportation of cherished adjuncts of camp-life. But, even when the Fourteenth had six wagons all to itself, there was a limit to transportation capacities. What was to

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become of the box? Our narrow-gauge comrade had now reached the acme of his suffering, and he was surrounded by the culminating circumstances of his box torment. No teamster would look at his precious box, for he never dreamed of the liberality of a twenty-five-cent bribe; and, when he did realize the Archimedean idea of a proper leverage, it was too late to get it under that box.

Throughout the camp there is a general feasting; and a jolly great repast it is, segregated banqueters in every mess preparing and consuming every nice tidbit which cannot be carried. The hum of busy preparation; the running to and fro; the crash of deserted and doomed edifices; the song, the shout, the merry challenge, - all mingled in a welling though not boisterous uproar, forming a unique and fitting orchestral accompaniment to that night banquet of December 20, 1862, at Offutt's Cross Roads. It was a scene never to be obliterated from the picture-gallery of the veteran's memory. Yet our anxious friend is all out of place, and out of joint mentally. His box is the biggest sort of an elephant on his hands. He at length plunges into it, and for two hours eats all he can; but his stomach plays him a mean trick, and soon refuses to act as a general provision warehouse. He cautiously doles out some of the commonest articles to his near comrades, who, realizing the situation, are not demonstrative at his generosity. But the time for departure nears rapidly; and in sheer desperation he throws open to all about him his precious box, after carefully cramming his knapsack and haversack beyond any intention of the maker. Not five miles does he proceed on the march, before he utterly breaks down under his extra load; and he has the satisfaction of getting thoroughly fagged out in order to supply a lunch at a wayside halt for a dozen of his companions in line. However, through all that winter in Poolesville, he never forgot his unparalleled hospitality, nor did he permit the recipients to forget it, and eagerly did he strive to build upon it a reputation for liberality; but they remembered what he ignored, that every mouthful he dispensed was extorted by an inevitable necessity. His one enforced beneficence could not save him.