And let after ages tell,
How they won the proudest name in song or story.
Eugene H. Munday.
I remained in Armory Square hospital until the 26th of May, when I was transferred to a place called White Hall, on the Delaware river, about eighteen miles above Philadelphia. It was formally a seminary, but had been taken for hospital use. At the time I wished it had always remained what it was built for, as it was the most lonesome and dreary place I ever saw. The nearest place was a village called Bristol, two miles away, and we went there when we could, and those who were able traveled the country for miles around, just to pass the time away. It seemed very hard, now that the war was over, and our services no longer needed, that we could not return to our homes.
On the 7th of June they began mustering out men of the different states, and fifty to a hundred men left the hospital for home every day. Day after day passed, and there still remained all those of my regiment, six or seven, with no sign of being mustered out.
On the 3rd day of July we heard of our regiment passing through Philadelphia on its way home, and then we could content ourselves no longer. We wanted to be with them when they entered old Massachusetts again, and to be with our comrades once more before the regiment was disbanded, and those who had been our companions so long were scattered far and wide.
We went to the surgeon in charge, and asked him why we were not discharged.
“It takes a long while to get your descriptive lists from the front, and I intend to have you veterans discharged for wounds received in action, and you would get a hundred dollars extra,” was his reply.
But that was no inducement to me to stay there any longer, and I asked him if I could not be sent to my regiment, and he gave his consent, so on the 6th of July, in company with one or two others of my regiment, I bade goodbye to my hospital life, and started for Massachusetts.
Arriving in Boston on the evening of the 7th, we remained there that night and the next morning took the steamer for Galloupe’s Island, where our regiment was quartered.