"'Won't you try to leave it off?'
"'Yes, chaplain, I will.'"
Said another delegate: "I went among the men, and they all gathered round me with great eagerness. They were a little disappointed, however, when they saw that I was a delegate of the Commission. They took me to be the paymaster.
"But I have something that is better than gold."
"'Give me some of it,' said one, who was the son of a Baptist minister, a tender-hearted Christian."
One, just returned from the army at Petersburg, said: "I came across a drummer-boy of one of the Massachusetts regiments, a member of the Sabbath school at home, who lost his Bible during the campaign, but he has written the heads of his drum all over with texts of Scripture from memory. He beats a Gospel drum."
An hour was passed with such narration interspersed with devotional exercises. Glorious their work! Sweet the music of their parting hymn:—
"Nearer, my God, to thee,
Nearer to thee;
E'en though it be a cross that raiseth me,
Still all my song shall be,
Nearer, my God, to thee,
Nearer to thee."
CHAPTER XXI.
SIEGE OPERATIONS.
June, 1864.