armies, it preferred to make Union soldiers of them. Details from our regiment recruited in all nearly men enough to fill a colored regiment; and while we were in Arkansas over twenty members of the Third Minnesota, mostly enlisted men, on my recommendation received commissions in colored regiments.

Governor Andrew Johnson, April 24, 1862, telegraphed from Nashville to the government at Washington as follows: "I have this moment been advised that the Third Minnesota Regiment, stationed here, and forces at Murfreesboro' and Lebanon, have been ordered south by Buell. These forces ought to be detained where they are." It was no fault of the Third Regiment or its officers that it was not oftener in the front. When our forces entered Little Rock, General Steele selected it for permanent guard duty to maintain order in that city, because of its good discipline and reliability, and not at the suggestion or request of any one connected with the regiment. That accounts for its not having been with him in his severe battle at Jenkins's Ferry, where he gained a victory over the forces of Kirby Smith. Taken as a whole, its record in Arkansas was distinguished. Its good behavior at the capital exerted an important moral influence for the Union cause; and whenever it was employed in the field, as it was ultimately in numerous scouting expeditions, it uniformly returned with some prisoners of war. At the close of the war it was employed three months preserving order and aiding reconstruction in Northeastern Arkansas, headquarters at Jacksonport. It left Arkansas in the early part of September, 1865, having served constantly in that State a little over two

years, and, returning to Fort Snelling, it there, on September 16, fell into line for the last time.

Isaac Murphy, who was the only man in the secession convention of Arkansas who voted "no," and who, like a sturdy patriot worthy of the best days of republican Rome, steadfastly adhered to the Union cause, and was finally installed as the first free State Governor of Arkansas,-this incorruptible and enlightened patriot, in a voluntary communication which he sent to the Governor of Minnesota, in token of his admiration of the Third Regiment, said, "While they have been on duty in our capital good order has prevailed, and they have won the respect and esteem of the citizens. When called to meet the enemy, they have proved ready for any undertaking and reliable in every emergency. Such men are an honor to the government and the cause they serve. Their State may justly be proud of them, as they will do her credit wherever duty calls them."

THE ILLUSIONS OF A SOLDIER.

BY BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL S. P. JENNISON,

LIEUTENANT-COLONEL TENTH MINNESOTA INFANTRY, U. S. VOLUNTEERS.

It is possible the title just read may mislead your expectations. Perhaps it would have been better to present the following under the alternative title "Remarks Appropriate to the First of April."

Every volunteer soldier will probably admit that he had, at the time and during the period of his enlistment, misconceptions of many things in regard to war and battles; that he found a great many things quite different from his anticipations. But he will now speak with the utmost positiveness of things past, especially of those in the doing of which he was a participant. There can be no mistake in what he then saw and has held in vivid and often recurring remembrance ever since.

The recent reading of my own letters written from the army in the field during the civil war, and in which nothing was said which was not then believed to be true, has impressed me that we are yet the victims of illusions. Have any of you ever compared your present recollection of some considerable event of the war with your written account of the same given in some private letter at the time, and which you have seldom seen since to refresh, as lawyers say, your recollection? When you do you will be surprised at the variance.

Not only will incidents be found in one that are wanting in the other, which would be natural enough, since in no one account would probably all the incidents be contained, but you will find that you have transferred incidents from some other occasion, and that your trustworthy memory has adopted as personally known facts the inferential conclusions which have seemed to you reasonable to fill out and complete the account as your remembrance now renders it.

A variety of considerations have induced many of the commanders of armies in the Rebellion on both sides to write their memoirs or accounts of their campaigns. There is hardly an instance in which the writer does not betray some present illusion, commit some error, by trusting to his so vivid recollection. In some cases the kindly judgment of comrades expressed at the time has been clearly colored by subsequent companionship with enemies of those comrades. In other cases recollection has been warped in the other direction. Every article in the magazine is followed by notes of correction in subsequent numbers, or by extended articles of refutation in other magazines. This holds equally of Federal and of Confederate accounts, and the corrections of each come, as a rule, not from the other side, but from the mistaken writer's comrades. Thus General Grant's recollection was corrected from his official reports by General W. F. Smith, and a Confederate commander having published as of his own knowledge that a reconnoissance of the field of Longstreet's battle on the second day at Gettysburg was made on the afternoon of the first day and Longstreet's attack ordered for daylight which was not

begun till half-past three in the afternoon, General Longstreet shows from the official reports of the accusing officer and all others that the field of the pretended reconnoissance was far within the Federal lines all the first day and the night following.

The late Colonel Scott, who had charge of the war records, said that the calls on him from officers on both sides were innumerable. Yet a good many should have called on him sooner than they did. After twice hearing an officer of his acquaintance describe the battle of the "Monitor" and the "Merrimac" as an eye-witness, telling about his field-glass and his point of observation, Scott looked up the official reports made by the officer himself, and found that he had reported that he was at Falls Church on the day of the battle.

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"One day," said Scott, "an old officer came in here and excitedly exclaimed, 'Have you said I was not in the second battle of Bull Run?' 'No; not exactly that,' said Scott. Well, Bob Scott,' resumed the other, 'I was told you said so, and I came in to put daylight through you if you stuck to it.' 'Oh, no,' replied Scott, 'I never said you were not in that battle. What I said was that you yourself, in an official report dated the day of the battle, had said you were in the Cumberland Valley, a hundred miles from Centreville and Bull Run!" Scott called a clerk and had the report brought, which the officer read twice through in solid silence, then rose, took his hat and left without a word. Evidently our recollections, both of volunteers and regulars, are full of illusions. Or perhaps the official reports were written too soon.

But marvellous as are the performances of our mem