The Rebel officers did not find the scene what their fancy painted it, and turning around they strutted out.

When the votes came to be counted out there were over seven thousand for Lincoln, and not half that many hundred for McClellan.  The latter got very few votes outside the Raider crowd.  The same day a similar election was held in Florence, with like result.  Of course this did not indicate that there was any such a preponderance of Republicans among us.  It meant simply that the Democratic boys, little as they might have liked Lincoln, would have voted for him a hundred times rather than do anything to please the Rebels.

I never heard that the Rebels sent the result North.

CHAPTER LXI.

The rebels formally propose to us to desert to them—­contumelious treatment of the proposition—­their rage—­an exciting time—­an outbreak threatened—­difficulties attending desertion to the rebels.

One day in November, some little time after the occurrences narrated in the last chapter, orders came in to make out rolls of all those who were born outside of the United States, and whose terms of service had expired.

We held a little council among ourselves as to the meaning of this, and concluded that some partial exchange had been agreed on, and the Rebels were going to send back the class of boys whom they thought would be of least value to the Government.  Acting on this conclusion the great majority of us enrolled ourselves as foreigners, and as having served out our terms.  I made out the roll of my hundred, and managed to give every man a foreign nativity.  Those whose names would bear it were assigned to England, Ireland, Scotland France and Germany, and the balance were distributed through Canada and the West Indies.  After finishing the roll and sending it out, I did not wonder that the Rebels believed the battles for the Union were fought by foreign mercenaries.  The other rolls were made out in the same way, and I do not suppose that they showed five hundred native Americans in the Stockade.

The next day after sending out the rolls, there came an order that all those whose names appeared thereon should fall in.  We did so, promptly, and as nearly every man in camp was included, we fell in as for other purposes, by hundreds and thousands.  We were then marched outside, and massed around a stump on which stood a Rebel officer, evidently waiting to make us a speech.  We awaited his remarks with the greatest impatience, but He did not begin until the last division had marched out and came to a parade rest close to the stump.

It was the same old story: