"Of course you do," said Adjutant Haskell; "and all that we propose is to give you a home until you find where you belong; and the place we propose for you is undoubtedly the best place we know of. Company H is a fine body of men; since I am no longer in it I may say that they are picked men; the most of them are gentlemen. Let me mention some good old Carolina names--you will remember them, I think. Did you never hear the name of Barnwell?"
"Yes, of course," I said; "I've been to Barnwell Court-House. I believe this place--I mean Aiken--is in Barnwell district."
"Well, John G. Barnwell is the first lieutenant in Company H. Do you know of the Rhetts?"
"Yes, the name is familiar as that of a prominent family."
"Grimké Rhett is a lieutenant in Company H. Then there are the Seabrooks and the Hutsons, and Mackay, and the Bellots[6], and Stewart, and Bee, and Fraser Miller, and many more who represent good old families. You would speedily feel at home."
[6] The Bellots were of a French Huguenot family, which settled in Abbeville, S.C. (in 1765?). The name gradually came to be pronounced Bellotte. [ED.]
"Gentlemen," said I, "how I ever became a soldier I do not know. I am a soldier in a cause that I do not understand."
"And you have done many other things that you could not now understand if you were told of them," said the doctor.
"But, Jones," said the adjutant, "a man who has already been wounded in the service of his country ought to be proud of it!"
"What do you mean, Captain?" I asked.