I now had only two miles to go, and was soon at the dear old boyhood home. My folks were expecting me, so they were not taken by surprise. There was no "scene" when we met, nor any effusive display, but we all had a feeling of profound contentment and satisfaction which was too deep to be expressed by mere words.
When I returned home I found that the farm work my father was then engaged in was cutting up and shocking corn. So, the morning after my arrival, September 29th, I doffed my uniform of first lieutenant, put on some of father's old clothes, armed myself with a corn knife, and proceeded to wage war on the standing corn. The feeling I had while engaged in this work was "sort of queer." It almost seemed, sometimes, as if I had been away only a day or two, and had just taken up the farm work where I had left off.
Here this story will close.
In conclusion I will say that in civil life people have been good to me. I have been honored with different positions of trust, importance, and responsibility, and which I have reason to believe I filled to the satisfaction of the public. I am proud of the fact of having been deemed worthy to fill those different places. But, while that is so, I will further say, in absolute sincerity, that to me my humble career as a soldier in the 61st Illinois during the War for the Union is the record that I prize the highest of all, and is the proudest recollection of my life.
Footnotes
[ 1 ] Some years after this sketch was written I ascertained that this battery was Richardson's, Co. D, 1st Missouri Light Artillery.
[ 2 ] See "Military History of Ulysses S. Grant," by Adam Badeau, Vol. 1, page 456.