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From
Pigeon Cove, he wrote in August:—
It is strange to come back from the war; one feels like Rip Van Winkle and instinctively grasps round to see if all one's friends are still alive; it is not that one feels old, but only strange, and as if one had been in a trance, during which almost anything might have happened.
It was a relief to
Colonel Higginson to receive, in October, his order of discharge, having feared that he might be retained in some recruiting or other minor service.
After the regiment was disbanded, the Negro soldiers often wrote affectionate letters to their former
Colonel, and he was able to help them in various ways.
This extract from one of the men's letters gives a fair sample of their loyalty and orthography, ‘I meet manny of the old Soldiers I Spoke of you—all hailed your name with that Emotion (that become you) of the Sould when hearing of one who when in darkness burst light on their part way.’
The following winter, the returned author reported to
Dr. Rogers from
Newport that he was writing about the
St. Mary's expedition
1:—
I never did anything so distasteful to me. It is a kind of posthumous life, now that that book of my existence is closed.
My instinct is always to live in the present and it is hard for me to reproduce my
