FOUR DAYS AT DETROIT. 282 



spring of 1861, where we joined a military organiza- 

 tion known later as the ''Normal Company" of the 

 *' Ellsworth Avengers " — Forty-fourth New York In- 

 fantry- — whose members were put through a course of 

 drills inanticipation of future necessity, our voluntary 

 drill masters being Professors Rodney G. Kimball and 

 Albert N. Husted. 



It was argued by the principal and by the faculty 

 generally, that while young men were learning how to 

 teach the schools of the State, it would be well also for 

 them to be prepared to defend the flag of the State. 

 AVe had just closed our term when President Lincoln 

 issued his call for seventy-five thousand volunteers, and 

 as it was not at this time the apparent intent of the 

 Normal Company to enter the service as a body, we de- 

 cided to enlist in some other organization. 



Hampton went to Rochester where he joined the 

 Eio;hth New York Cavalrv, while I enlisted in the 

 Second New York-Harris Light Cavalry,at Troy. We 

 did not meet again until November, 1863 — when, by 

 the fortune of war, we both became inmates of Libby 

 Prison. The circumstances that brought us there werCj 

 on his side, wounds and capture in an action with guer- 

 rillas under Mosby; on mine, capture in a cavalry 

 battle near New Baltimore, Virginia, during Lee's 

 retreat from the field of Gettysburg: 



During our imprisonment at Richmond, Danville, 

 Macon, Savannah, and Charleston, Captain Hampton 

 and I belonged to separate messes, so that, while we 

 met daily, we had very little intimate intercourse. At 

 Columbia, however, it was different. We arrived there 

 in the midst of a violent thunder-storm, and were 

 marched to our " quarters,'' in an open yard where 



