did. I had spent nearly all the money I had with me, but what I did have

I handed over, and was going on when he stopped me to know if I would receive an old man's blessing. I stopped, not knowing what to say or do, when he raised his hands above my head, and as near as I can recall the words said, "God Almighty bless and protect you and yours. The Cross of Christ shall stand between you and all harm, a bullet shall never hit that head; you have helped a poor old man, and as you have helped him so shall you be helped. You have cast bread upon the water and though it be late in life, your reward shall come." I thanked him and hurried away. Quite a crowd had collected while this was going on. I was all togged out in my new uniform, having been to have my picture taken, and I suppose the sight was a little unusual. I haven't told a soul but you, diary, for anyone but you would laugh at me. But you and I are confidants and you have never yet betrayed me. Lieutenant Gorton is about sick to-night, and I have been doctoring him up the best I know how. Have got him to bed and given him a part of my covering, for though the night is cold he needs it the most. I don't feel a bit like sleep. In spite of me I can't get the old man and his strange conduct out of my head.

By way of experiment a squad of sergeants was sent out to-night to try their hand at recruiting. They have come in with about sixty good-looking negroes. This shows they can beat us at the business, and if they are kept at it we will soon have a full regiment.

_January 10, 1864._

_Sunday._ Sergeant Brant thought sure he would go to-day and after a good-bye all round started for the boat. He came back soon after, saying he had given up the trip for to-day. It seems the boat is held back for some reason and will sail to-morrow. That will give me time to write some more letters. The quartermaster and I went to church to-day. He knew where to go, and though it was a long walk there and back, I felt well paid for going. As near as I could tell it was a Methodist church. At any rate the language used was United States, while those I had before attended used Latin. We were seated in a pew with a handsome young lady, who gave us a hymn book, even finding the place for us. I was never more sorry I could not sing. After church she invited us to come again, saying how glad she was we had come to-day. We promised her we would, and came back. If I can find the way there I certainly mean to go again. We now expect to start for Texas this week sometime. Only a part are to go and we are all impatience to know who will be taken and who left. If I knew my leave of absence wouldn't come I should want to go, but suppose it did come and had to follow me up, the time would be up before I could get started. I am very often thankful for the things I don't know.

_January 11, 1864._

_Monday._ I sneaked off this morning, and hunted up Madam Black, the "Great Indian Astrologist," as the papers call her. I had been boiling over with curiosity to know how near she and the other one--I have forgotten her name--agree as to my future. I found her without trouble, and was surprised to find her, not a squaw, as I expected, but one of the sweetest-looking and most motherly-acting old women I have seen since I saw my own dear mother. She simply took me by storm. I couldn't disbelieve her if I tried. I had always been an unbeliever in fortune-telling, but in the state of mind I was in I was ready to catch at any straw she held out. She took me into an elegantly furnished room, and the only question she asked about myself was the day and month of my birth. This I told her, and she sat down before me and closed her eyes as if going to sleep. Soon she began, and gave me as good a history of my past life as I could have told her, without going into particulars more than she did. Of course I was then ready to gulp down anything she might say, and was tempted to run away and leave my future as it had always been to me, a closed book. But my desire to hear about my going home, or going to Texas was strong upon me, and I held my breath while she continued. She told me I was born to disappointment, that my plans had been upset as fast as I made them, and this would continue until after my forty-fifth birthday; that happily for me I was also born with a disposition that did not allow disappointments to sink in as it otherwise would, and for that reason I had never been so discouraged as not to try again. After my forty-fifth birthday things would change and I would wind up rich and contented. As she said this she added, "but it won't take as much to make you rich and contented as it does most people." She told me I was to have two wives (she didn't say both at one time) and five children. Then she said, as the other one did, that I was going on a journey in a few days, from which I would return to New Orleans again; that inside of seven months I would go on a journey from which I would never return to this place; that after that I would be happy and the world would be kinder to me than ever before. Aside from a chat we had on other subjects, that was all I got for my $5. I believe now I am to go somewhere very soon, but whether to Matagorda or to Dutchess County I know no more than before. I came back and went to work getting ready for a start, because that was what the others were doing, but to save me I couldn't put much heart in my preparations. It rained to-day, as usual. Altogether it has not been a cheerful day for me. I am five dollars poorer and the little knowledge I swapped it for does not cheer me as I hoped it might. Good night, diary. Remember you are not to tell a living soul of this, and when Gorton next proposes my going to consult my future, I shall tell him I don't believe a thing in it, and that the whole thing is a swindle. The question, Texas or home, is still unanswered.

_January 12, 1864._

_Tuesday._ "Glory, Hallelujah!" I'm going home. Just as I was crawling under my blanket to-night, after a miserable cold, wet day of routine duty, the colonel's servant came and said the colonel wanted me to come to his tent. I got up and dressed, wondering what it could mean. Just then I recalled hearing a horseman ride in and out, and I said to myself--that means Texas sure. I found pretty much all the colonel's family packed in his tent and all with long, sober faces on them. The colonel asked me what sort of a caper I had been up to when out on a pass yesterday, adding, before I could reply, that I was the last one he expected to get such a report about from headquarters, at the same time handing me an official-looking document and requested me to read for myself. In a sort of a daze I opened it and at a glance saw it was my leave of absence. I came to life then. Whether they are glad to be rid of me for a while, or what, I don't know, but they all appeared as glad as I was. Appeared, I say, for it is not possible they could feel as I did, and do, about it. We kept the colonel up until he drove us off and then the most of them went home with me, and we kept up the clatter of talk until almost morning. The errands and the messages I have promised to do and deliver will make a hole in my vacation, but I don't care, for anyone of them would do the same for me. The day had been so dull that I was not going to write a word about it, but the wind-up was too momentous not to mention it on the day and date thereof. And now for a nap, or a try for one.

_January 13, 1864._

_Wednesday._ In spite of late hours last night I was up early, and as soon as I had eaten, was off to look up the matter of transportation. If a transport is to sail soon I can go through for nothing. I found it was barely possible one might go this week, but it was quite uncertain. Knowing how very uncertain these army uncertainties are, I went to the office of the Creole and found she sails on Friday. I engaged passage and came back and have since been getting ready to go. Gorton wants me to take his Henry Holmes along to help Mrs. Gorton, and says I can pass him through as my servant free of cost. I told him if that was the case I would take him along, and the darkey is almost as glad to go as I am. Marching orders came to-day, and preparations for a move are already under way. Two regiments of mounted infantry have come in to camp with us and this makes neighbors pretty close.

_January 14, 1864._

_Thursday. Night._ Camp is torn up, and the men and officers have gone. Part started for Franklin again, for recruits, and Colonel B. with the rest have started off towards Lake Ponchartrain, what for, nobody here knows. If I have the good luck that was wished me, I shall certainly have a fine time. I have got my ticket, and my baggage is on board the Creole. She sails at 7 A. M. to-morrow morning. I am back in camp to stay with Sol and the quartermaster, who are left to go on to-morrow with the stores. Colonel B. rode in for some final directions. He says they encamp at Lakeport to-night, and will receive orders in the morning what to do or where to go. He says there is a prospect of our being transferred to the quartermaster's department.

_January 15, 1864._

_Friday._ On board the steamer Creole, at South West Pass. Have taken on a pilot and will soon be across the bar and into the Gulf. We left at foot of Toulouse street at half past eight this morning. Gorton had managed to get in, in time to swing his hat as we started down the river.

Whether he had something of importance to say I don't know, for he was too late for anything but the farewell swing of his broad-brimmed hat. The boat is so nice I don't feel a bit at home. The table and staterooms are likewise. However I shall try and endure it. The most of the passengers are army men with a sprinkling of men and women, some of the latter being Sisters of Mercy. No place would look right without them, for they seem to be everywhere. We are in the Gulf now, and the pilot has just left us. The sea is getting rougher every minute and my dinner and supper seem to be quarreling about something. I did not expect to be seasick, but the symptoms are all here and I think I will go below.

_January 17, 1864._

_Sunday._ Yesterday I did not write. I had other business to attend to. Friday night I went below, thinking I might the better escape an attack of seasickness, which I felt coming on. But I did not. After a night as full of misery as one night can be, I found myself alive at daylight, but perfectly willing to die, if I only could. The stateroom was first swinging around in a circle, and then going end over end. First I would go up, as if I was never going to stop, and then sink down until it seemed as if I must strike bottom. My clothes, hanging across from me, were going through the same motions. I was soon gazing at my breakfast, dinner and supper of the day before, and I think I saw traces of my New Year's dinner. Life or death, York State or Louisiana, peace or war were all the same to me then. Whether the ship was on its way to New York or to the bottom didn't interest me a particle. Anything would suit me. After a while of this I fell asleep, and about 3 P. M. I came to life again, and began to take stock, as Sol says. I felt like a dishrag, thrown down without being wrung out. Soon a knock came at the door, and I was surprised to find I could say "come in." A colored individual with the boat's uniform on came in, and after a look at me and then at the floor went after the necessary tools for house-cleaning. There were two berths, one above the other, and I was in the lower one. He helped me into the upper berth and began operations on the one I had occupied. After a while he claimed things were once more shipshape, and left me saying I would soon be all right. I soon after got out on the floor and managed to get into my clothes. From that I ventured into the cabin, where I sat down in a chair I could not possibly fall out of, and soon got into conversation with a man, whom I found to be a sea captain, on his way to New York to take out another vessel. He didn't seem to be worried about me, and said there were many others on board that had been sick and had not yet showed up. He got me a cracker, which I ate, more to see if my stomach was still there than because I was hungry. This helped me wonderfully, and after visiting a while I went back and slept sound all night.

To-day I have been on deck almost all day. The water is not smooth, but it is nothing to what it was night before last. I looked up Henry Holmes, and found he had been as sick as I, and that he was not over it yet. His color had changed to a gray, which did not improve his looks at all. All I could do was to tell him how sorry I was for him, and that he would soon feel well again. But he said he would "never live to see the Noff, he just knew he couldn't." The day was perfect, almost everyone was on deck, and though some were rather pale, all seemed to enjoy themselves.

_January 18, 1864._

_Monday._ I was all over my sick spell this morning, and although there was quite a breeze, and the water quite rough, it did not disturb me. Henry was still sick, and wished himself back on the old plantation. I wished I could help him in some way, but was told there is nothing to do but grin and bear it. About 10 A. M. we saw something they called Florida Cape, but if it had not been pointed out I should not have seen it at all. Altogether the day passed very pleasantly for me.

_January 19, 1864._

_Tuesday._ The same thing to-day. Henry is sick yet, though I think I see some improvement. We don't seem to move, but I suppose we do. There is nothing in sight but water, and it seems to go up hill in every direction. The Creole keeps chugging away, but there is nothing by which I can tell whether we move or not.

_Night._ The captain says we are off the coast of Georgia, but how he knows I don't know. If we were near enough, I would feel just like jumping off and going on foot to New York and telling them the Creole is coming.

_January 20, 1864._

_Wednesday._ To-day the wind has been against us. At noon we were said to be off Charleston. The sea-captain passenger has had fun with the landsmen about staggering as we go about, but he is laughing no more. This afternoon he was getting up from a nap in his room, when a sudden lurch of the vessel pitched him head first against a mirror opposite, and smashed it fine. He called all hands up for something at his expense. We have spent the evening playing euchre and had a very pleasant time.

_January 21, 1864._

_Thursday._ The day has been warm and pleasant, we are past Cape Hatteras and with good luck will be in New York by to-morrow at this time. Henry is coming round all right but he has been dreadfully sick and shows it.

_January 22, 1864._

_Friday._ Was up early, for at night, or before, we were to reach New York. I saw that Henry was ready to grab his little bundle, and then kept an eye out ahead. The first I saw was Sandy Hook, and soon we were in sight of land and numberless other vessels. At 2 P. M. the Creole tied up at pier 13, North River, and not long after, Henry and I were in an express wagon bound for the 26th Street depot. I had to call at 197 Mulberry street to deliver a message for John Mathers, and his people urged me to stay all night and tell them about John and the war. From there we went to Brook Brothers to do an errand for Colonel Bostwick and then on for the station. A man jumped on the wagon and wanted to hire Henry for a cook in a restaurant, but Henry had all the job he wanted, and refused. He offered him $25 a month and board, but Henry said no. At 26th Street we found the train would soon start and I hustled for tickets. I had given Henry a dollar, telling him to get something to eat at a place opposite the station and looked all around for him after I had my ticket and trunk check. I went to the restaurant and hunted all about until the cry "All aboard" came, and then giving his ticket to a policeman, to send him along on the next train, got on board, and at 8.20 P. M. landed at Millerton. No one knew of my coming, and the people gazed at me as if I had risen from the dead. I was still five miles from home, and as the roads were it might as well have been fifty. There was no one in the place from our way, and as I had to be there when the train came next day to look for Henry, there was no other way but to stay all night. This I did, at Sweet's Hotel.

_January 23, 1864._

_Saturday._ I visited about until train time, and managed to send word home that I would be there at night or before. I took dinner at Jenks' and was scolded for not coming right there the night before. At 2 P. M. when the train came I was on the platform, but no Henry got off. I then gave him up as lost in New York somewhere, but for what reason he had left me as he had I could not imagine. I had seen him enter the Dutchess County House after a lunch, and in ten minutes I was back there looking for him, but he was gone. That is all I could tell Mrs. Gorton, or the lieutenant, when I saw him again. I jumped in with Joe Hull, stopped at the Center and told Mrs. Gorton about Henry, went on, stopping at Mr. Hull's for a short call, and was soon after at home. I found little change in the dear old couple. I thought they looked a little older, but it was the same father and mother who had never been absent from my thoughts since I left them a year and a half before. They had been told I was at Millerton, on my way home. There had been no time to notify them by letter for I left New Orleans before a mail steamer did, after my furlough came. What was said and what was done concerns only us three, and we are not likely to forget it. It is enough to say we were all happy, and that we talked until late bedtime. I found my room just as I left it. So far as I could see, nothing had been disturbed. It was a long time before I slept, but I did at last, and I suppose they did also.

_February 27, 1864._

_Saturday._ From January 23 on I was too busy, visiting and being visited, to do more with my diary than keep notes enough to remind me, when I got time, to write up again. Time was too precious to even write about, I had the free run of everything. Horses and wagons, or sleighs as the case might call for, were free, and the houses of my friends were all open for me either night or day. Many times the younger set met somewhere for an evening and in that way I did much wholesale visiting. I feel ashamed now, as I look over the list, to think I spent so much of the time away from home. But there seemed no other way. The main object of my coming, that of getting a place for father and mother to live after April, was accomplished by buying the place opposite Mott Drake's, with which they are well pleased. They will be among old and tried friends, and about central for the girls to visit them--near the church and store, and where the mail passes every day. With land enough to keep the cow, and to raise all the vegetables they need, they have never been so comfortably situated since my time began. Through Mr. Bostwick's kindness I was able to accomplish all this, and I go back to my task with a lighter heart and a heavier debt of gratitude then I came home with. I cannot mention all the people I visited and that visited me. It would be easier to tell those I did not meet. Those who had dear ones in the South that I could tell them about were never tired hearing about them. Some whose dear ones lie buried where they fell were the hardest for me. I could not tell them the worst, and the best seemed so awful to them I was glad when such visits were over.

Almost at the last I got track of Henry Holmes, and left him with John Loucks to pass along to Mrs. Gorton. He told me the man who tried to hire him in New York followed him into the restaurant and told him I had left a trunk on the Creole, and that I wanted him to go and get it. He jumped in the same wagon that had brought us there and was taken down town to a recruiting office, where he was asked to enlist. His being lame prevented that, and he was turned out in the street again. He asked everyone where the depot was where Lieutenant Larry went for tickets. Finally he told his story to someone who was humane enough to help him, and in that way got back to the 26th Street depot. There the policeman to whom I had given his ticket saw him, and, as there was no train that night, sent him to some place for the night, and saw him on the train the next day. He was asleep on the train when it reached Millerton, and was taken through to Albany, where he kept up the search and inquiry for Lieutenant Larry. Some kind-hearted people then set about quizzing him for my last name, and hearing the name Van Alstyne, which is common in Albany, he at once said it was Lieutenant Larry Van Alstyne. After a while he recalled Major Palon and Colonel Bostwick to mind. As neither of these names were of Albany, and as the Palons were known to live in Hudson, he was sent there. The Palons got him a place with a farmer at Johnstown, below Hudson, and also put an advertisement in the paper giving the particulars as Henry had given them. One of these papers fell into the hands of Colonel Bostwick's mother, who sent for me. John Loucks then went to Johnstown and found Henry, who had a good place with people who were good to him, and he refused to go, saying he had been fooled so many times he had rather stay where he was. As John was about to leave he happened to say in Henry's hearing, "I don't know what Larry will say." At the name Larry, which it appears had not been spoken before, Henry at once asked if he meant Lieutenant Larry, and upon being told he did, he said, "If you know Lieutenant Larry, I'll go with you." And so it came about that we came together only the night before I was to start for the South again. I was certainly glad to see Henry, and if actions are any guide, Henry was glad to see me.[8]

FOOTNOTES:

[8] After the war I became a citizen of Sharon, and soon after Henry Holmes came there to live and so conducted himself that only good can be said of him. In the book of Sharon epitaphs, published in 1903, appears the following:

"Henry Holmes Died May 19, 1887 Free at last."

"Henry Holmes was probably about seventy years old at the time of his death. He was born a slave and so remained until freed by the Civil War. He was last owned by a cotton planter in Louisiana from whom he took his name. He came north in the winter of 1864-5 and lived nearly all the remainder of his life in Sharon. He was a Methodist, and was buried from that church. The ministers from both the other churches attended and requested the privilege of taking part in the services. They each in turn gave testimony to the help and encouragement they had received from the words and example of this good old man. He was entirely self-supporting and at his death it was found he had laid by a sum sufficient to defray the expenses of his burial, and to pay for the enduring monument which marks his grave in Hillside Cemetery."