If ever the heavens smiled fair weather on any
campaign, they have done so on ours.
THE "BOSTON."
Soldiers on shipboard are proverbially fish out of water. We could not
be called by the good old nickname of "lobsters" by the crew. Our gray
jackets saved the _sobriquet_. But we floundered about the crowded
vessel like boiling victims in a pot. At last we found our places,
and laid ourselves about the decks to tan or bronze or burn scarlet,
according to complexion. There were plenty of cheeks of lobster-hue
before next evening on the Boston.
A thousand young fellows turned loose on shipboard were sure to make
themselves merry. Let the reader imagine that! We were like any other
excursionists, except that the stacks of bright guns were always present
to remind us of our errand, and regular guard-mounting and drill went
on all the time. The young citizens growled or laughed at the minor
hardships of the hasty outfit, and toughened rapidly to business.
Sunday, the 21st, was a long and somewhat anxious day. While we were
bowling along in the sweet sunshine and sweeter moonlight of the halcyon
time, Uncle Sam might be dethroned by somebody in buckram, or Baltimore
burnt by the boys from Lynn and Marblehead, revenging the massacre of
their fellows.
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