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he sang in church choirs, taught, and lectured, until the great rush for the gold of California bore him with the human tide westward. Re-verses overtook him, however; his wife fell ill, and he had to stop far short of California. His money dwindled away—he had previously con-verted his property into gold and sent his library and manuscripts to Baltimore. Through the influence of friends he was appointed choir-master of a church at Washington, and became a teacher in the first circles in the city. He migrated to Richmond, Virginia, where he was doing well when the American Civil War broke out. Without hesitation Crouch joined the Confederate forces, sacrificing a salary of 4,000 dollars per annum for the private soldier's twelve dollars per month, which twelve dollars, he drily says, " he never got." He enlisted in the first Regiment Richmond Greys, quartered at Norfolk. From the day on which he entered the army until the surrender of General Lee, at Appomattox Courthouse, Crouch was always at his post; never sick nor absent, and even unflinching in his refusal to accept the furlough that was offered him. From the last battlefield he made his way, with three broken ribs and his right hand badly smashed, to Buckingham Courthouse. Here he entered into service as a
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