It will require a more gifted pen than the one that traces these lines to picture the march of the “Old Sixth” through the city of New York.  Never before had so deep because so peculiar an enthusiasm pervaded the people of that vast metropolis.  Patriotism, under its normal and customary forms, had, on many previous occasions, been wrought up to an intense height; but now it was not to celebrate their national independence, but to secure their national existence, or rather, to settle the question whether the American people were, or were not a Nation.

At the St. Nicholas and other places, the wants of the regiment were sumptuously provided for.  At the Astor House, the field and staff officers were entertained in a manner that left nothing to be desired.

Once more on the march, the regiment passed through the crowded streets, everywhere receiving welcome plaudits until they reached the ferry that conducted them to Hoboken, and the places en route to Baltimore and Washington.  As we passed into the ferry boats to cross the river, a voice was heard above the tumult of the place and hour, “Good luck to you, boys, but some of you will never return by this route;” a prediction speedily fulfilled.  Within about twenty-four hours, three of our number had been transferred to a higher department.

The passage through Delaware to Philadelphia was not marked by any incidents worthy of notice.  Their long and weary pilgrimage had begun to change a brisk, wide-awake regiment into a common-place body of weary pilgrims, glad to find a shelter, without much questioning as to what it might be.  Quarters were assigned us in the Gerard House which happened at that time to be unoccupied.  For a brief period quiet ruled the hour, and the weary soldier had begun his dreams of home and happiness long before he was ready to stretch his limbs upon the mattresses that covered the floors of the spacious hotel.

Suddenly the “Long-roll” was heard echoing along the streets and through the halls of the Gerard House.  The accoutrements and garments that had been doffed in readiness for sleep were hastely resumed; and at the word “Fall in,” every man was in his place.

The “weight of affliction” in this crisis fell upon the field and staff officers.  They had but just assembled in the drawing-room of the Continental Hotel, and gone through with those preliminary forms that are quite as indicative of a good appetite as of good manners, and were quiet taking their places at the table, amid the sumptuous surroundings of a dining hall at that time scarcely equalled on the continent, when Col.  Jones entered the apartment, with the abrupt salutation, “Gentlemen, to your posts; we start for Baltimore immediately, the regiment awaits the order to march.” “Vae mihi!” the writer of this paper felt that he might, under the circumstances of the moment, appropriate a few minutes of time’s rapid flight to contemplate in sorrow and silence the scene of disappointment and woe.  The little he still retained of classic lore brought back images of the Harpies, as he had read of them in Virgil.  And even Sancho Panza thrust in his bullet head, with an asinine smile, as the writer recalled poor Sancho’s distress at not sharing the feast so tantalizingly spread before him.