AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN P. LACEY 403 



law seemed very dry that summer of 1862. I heard that 

 exchange of prisoners was being negotiated and I wrote 

 to General McKinstry at St. Louis, to ascertain if the 

 discharged prisoners were included in the cartel. He 

 wrote me that they were, and I again enlisted as a private 

 in Company D, Thirty-third Iowa, under Captain John 

 Lofland, in July, 1862. 



Samuel A. Rice was commissioned colonel of the regi- 

 ment, and when it was fully organized I was appointed 

 sergeant-major and so my studies again came to an end. 

 Though I read Willard's Equity afterwards at nights 

 during the siege of Mobile in 1865, my life from July, 

 1862, till my return home in 1865 was that of a soldier. 



MY SECOND SERVICE IN THE WAR 



I soon found that the sergeant-major of a regiment has 

 plenty of work to do and his field of usefulness is a very 

 wide one. I made all the details of enlisted men for 

 guard, fatigue, or other duties. They reported to me 

 from day to day by name and soon I knew by name every 

 man in the Thirty-third Iowa, which circumstance has 

 given me much pleasure in my after life and was a most 

 excellent practice in the useful art of learning names and 

 faces. This knowledge I made valuable to the colonel in 

 various ways and no doubt aided me in my subsequent 

 promotion. 



We rendezvoused at Oskaloosa and were quartered in 

 barracks at the fair grounds. October 1st we were mus- 

 tered in by Lieutenant Charles J. Ball, U. S. A. Colonel 

 Rice was an indefatigable student and mastered the tac- 

 tics with the greatest ease. I was well trained in the 

 manual of arms while in the Third Iowa, and night after 

 night I put the colonel through the drill with an old 

 Springfield musket until he became most proficient. 



