.

Out on Picket.
One can hardly imagine a body of men more disconsolate than a regiment suddenly transferred from an adventurous life in the enemy's country to the quiet of a sheltered camp, on safe and familiar ground.

The men under my command were deeply dejected when, on a most appropriate day,--the First of April, 1863,--they found themselves unaccountably recalled from Florida, that region of delights which had seemed theirs by the right of conquest.

My dusky soldiers, who based their whole walk and conversation strictly on the ancient Israelites, felt that the prophecies were all set at naught, and that they were on the wrong side of the Red Sea; indeed, I fear they regarded even me as a sort of reversed Moses, whose Pisgah fronted in the wrong direction.

Had they foreseen how the next occupation of the Promised Land was destined to result, they might have acquiesced with more of their wonted cheerfulness.