The order was obeyed; but the obedience was with bad grace, and I felt misgivings as to the officer's fitness to command,--misgivings which about a year afterward were vividly recalled with the scene I have described.
No sooner were these regiments off than companies began to stream in from all parts of the State.

On their first arrival they were quartered wherever shelter could be had, as there were no tents or sheds to make a camp for them.

Going to my evening work at the State House, as I crossed the rotunda, I saw a company marching in by the south door, and another disposing itself for the night upon the marble pavement near the east entrance; as I passed on to the north hall, I saw another, that had come a little earlier, holding a prayer-meeting, the stone arches echoing with the excited supplications of some one who was borne out of himself by the terrible pressure of events around him, whilst, mingling with his pathetic, beseeching tones as he prayed for his country, came the shrill notes of the fife, and the thundering din of the inevitable bass drum from the company marching in on the other side.

In the Senate chamber a company was quartered, and the senators were there supplying them with paper and pens, with which the boys were writing their farewells to mothers and sweethearts whom they hardly dared hope they should see again.

A similar scene was going on in the Representatives' hall, another in the Supreme Court room.