The farmers were very liberal with their provisions. Some came with cloth baskets of bread, pies, cakes, apple butter, and anything they could provide. They did not come to sell but to give the food to us. But there were three regiments of us and they could not give enough food. The army had made no provisions for us. From here on we went to Hagerstown, Maryland. They took us close to the front and formed a line of battle. We stayed here for a while, then they had us fall back to a small hill or heights where we stayed till evening. Soon we got orders to fall back to Green Castle. It was eleven miles before we got there. We were so tired we thought we were going to the end of the earth, as it was our first march in column with baggage we had brought from home. We had drawn some eats before we left there.

There was another amusing happening while we lay at the heights. There was a farmhouse there and we lounged around for several hours. There was a cellar under the house and there was a sloping cellar door like we have around Snyder County. Some of the boys were lounging on the cellar door. Eventually there was so many on that it broke down. About the time it broke there was a shell came pretty close and exploded. The boys fell in the cellar and they found the farmer had stored his farming implements for safekeeping. Among the implements some prominent men of the locality were hiding so as not to have to go in the army.

Before we left here we got some grub and taters issued to us. We had no teams to haul, so they detached some men to go out among the farmers to haul our stuff. They all refused at first and said they did not have time to go. But the boys had been instructed to bring teams with driver or no driver. So when the boys began to harness they concluded they would help and go along so they could bring their teams back, and so they did. They each got a slip from the quartermaster. I suppose they got they pay they wanted for their teams.

We came to camp in Green Castle in the wee hours of the morning, went in camp in a nice woods about ¾ mile from town. Had the best of water but the government eats did not suit us. Would have been glad many times after if we just had half as much or half as good. You see, we thought we aught to have pie at least once a day and I only had one pie while I was out there, and the way I got that was this way:

Mr. George Morten was Captain of Company D and while they laid there he would go into town to the bakery and get the baker to bake pies for his company and he would pay for them from his own pocket. So several of us who were strolling around met him with his detail and his pies. He stopped and handed each of us a pie. He knew us, as some of us had been some of his employees. He was the superintendent of the Trevorton Coal and Railroad Company.

We lay there until we were ordered back to Harrisburg and discharged. I at least thought I had learned all about soldiery and had enough.

Our officers were all intelligent businessmen but lacked military training. I doubt there was another regiment in the service that had as intelligent officers all through as the volunteer militia.

We had one boy and two men in our squad that took French leave when they heard the cannons roar at Sharpsburg. We did not know what had become of them till we got home. They were there all right. They said one of them was in such a hurry to get away from the cannon and get home that he did not stop to attend to the duties of nature and so when he returned home he had to have a new seat put in his pants. These two men both got in the army again. One was drafted and failed to report. The Provost Marshal got after and caught him. They brought him to the hotel here at Port [Trevorton]. They got to drinking and the guard helped to get him loaded. At least he thought he did as he staggered around and they carried him upstairs to bed. The guard returned downstairs and took part in a dance going on at the hotel. After a while he went upstairs to find the bird had flown down over the porch roof and disappeared. But it finally got so bad for him that he enlisted in the 184^th Pennsylvania Regiment and the report is he did a lot of good and was wounded. The other fellow enlisted in the 208^th Regiment and the report is he was no good and played sick and in one engagement he got a fainting fit and it took two good men to carry him off the field. After he came home he used to brag how he fooled them. The news got around and he could not get any work, not even as a laborer.