A. J. Bennett, private , First Massachusetts Light Battery, The story of the First Massachusetts Light Battery , attached to the Sixth Army Corps : glance at events in the armies of the Potomac and Shenandoah, from the summer of 1861 to the autumn of 1864.

[26] ‘No, I am secesh to the backbone.’ ‘Oh, pshaw! gal.’ Some comrade here commended the girl's candor, and she, turning to him, asked if he really believed the Confederacy would fail; being assured that he had a strong conviction that it would crumble, she would laugh incredulously. The deportment of these sons and the daughter toward their parents, and the manners and bearing of children in the same walk in life, as exemplified in their intercourse with their parents, as they came under our observation in Dixie, were in the highest degree creditable, alike to parental training and to filial tractability.

As to the men in question, they were, for obvious reasons, less communicative than the girl in regard to their political sentiments. But they were no hypocrites.

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During this winter, we were called to mourn the loss of Comrade Carpenter, of Lowell, who was killed while on duty with his team. This was the first diminution that our ranks suffered. Before the army moved, however, Comrades Cook and Preston left us; the former was detailed for hospital service in Alexandria; the latter was discharged on account of disability resulting from protracted illness.

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We well remember the crisp, cold New Year's Eve of 1862; the band of the Jersey Blues near the seminary discoursed patriotic and sentimental music, until the last old page turned.

The month of January was passed in the usual routine of winter camp. A few days before the new year opened, Gen. Ord's brigade of McCall's division, lying on the upper Potomac,—being, in fact, the right of that portion of the army which was on the south side,—having advanced to Dranesville, was attacked by a Confederate brigade under Gen. J. E. B. Stuart, who was repulsed with a loss of over two hundred. This was an offset to the unfortunate affair at Ball's Bluff, in the previous October. In February, the army and the nation were deprived by death of the services of Gen. Lander, who commanded the extreme right division of the army in Virginia, in the vicinity of Romney. He was one who had given the highest promise of valuable service to the nation in its time of dire need. He will be remembered with Gen. Shields as one in whom Stonewall Jackson found a foeman worthy of his