The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 | Page 7

The new uniforms came at last, and all the slang epithets with which
our regiment had been received were duly transferred to the newly
arrived squads of the next in order. Then we began to speculate on the
time and mode of our departure. It was remarkable how keenly the

most contented dispositions entered into these questions. There is in
military life a monotony of routine, and at the same time a constant
mental excitement, that make change--change of some sort, even from
better to worse--almost a necessity. I had already stretched myself in
my bunk one evening, and was half asleep, when I heard joyful voices
cry out, 'That's good!' and unerring instinct told me that orders had
come for the ----th to move. On the third day again we stood in our
ranks upon the muddy esplanade of the Benton Barracks, patiently
waiting for the A. A. A. G. and the P. Q. M. to get through the
voluminous correspondence which was to result in quarters and rations.
At least twenty thousand men were crowded at that time into this
dismal quadrangle. Perseverance and patience could overcome the
prevalent impression at the commissary that every new regiment was a
set of unlawful intruders, to be starved out if possible, but could not
conquer the difficulty of crowding material bodies into less space than
they had been created to fill. Two companies had to be packed into
each department intended for one. As for 'field and staff,' they were
worse off than the privates, and took their first useful lesson in the fact
that they were by no means such distinguished individuals in the large
army as they had been when showing off their new uniforms at home.
It must have been comforting to over-sensitive privates to hear how
colonels and quartermasters were snubbed in their turn by the 'general
staff.' The regimental headquarters, where these crest-fallen dignitaries
should have laid their weary heads, were tenanted by Captains A., who
had a pretty wife with him, and B., who gave such nice little suppers,
and C., whose mother was first cousin to the ugly half-breed that blew
the general's trumpet from the roof of the great house in the centre.
Wherefore the colonel, the surgeon, the chaplain, the quartermaster,
and the 'subscriber' were content to spread their blankets for the first
night with a brace of captains, on the particularly dirty floor of
Company F., and dream those 'soldier dreams' in which Mrs. Soldier
and two or three little soldiers--assorted sizes--run down to the garden
gate to welcome the hero home again, while guardian angels clap their
wings in delight and take a receipt for him as 'delivered in good order
and well-conditioned' to the deities that preside over the domestic altar.
Such dreams as these were easy matters for most of us, who had no

experience. With our regimental colors fresh from the hands of the two
inevitable young ladies in white, who had presented them (with
remarks suitable to the occasion), we saw nothing before us but a
march of double quick to 'glory or the grave.' Luckily we had cooler
heads among us: men who had fought in Mexico, camped in the
gulches of California, drilled hordes of Indians in South America, led
men in desperate starving marches over the plains. These went about
making us comfortable in a very prosaic, practical way. The first call
for volunteers from the ranks was not to defend a breach or lead a
forlorn hope, as we had naturally expected, but--for carpenters. They
were set to knocking down the clumsy bunks in the men's quarters and
rebuilding them in more convenient shape, piercing the roof for
ventilators, building shanties for the dispensary and the quartermaster's
stores. Colonel and chaplain made a daily tour of the cook rooms and
commissary, smelt of meat, tasted hard bread, dived into dinner pots,
examined coffee grounds to see whether any of the genuine article had
accidentally got mixed with the post supply of burnt peas. The surgeon
commenced vaccinating the men, and taking precautions against every
possible malady, old age, I believe, included. Meanwhile the adjutant
and the sergeant-major shut themselves up in a back room like a
counting house, and were kept busy copying muster rolls, posting huge
ledger-like books, making out daily and nightly returns, receiving and
answering elaborate letters from the official personages in the next
building. The company officers and men were assigned their regular
hours for drill, as well as for everything else that men could think of
doing in barracks. In short, we found ourselves all drawn into the
operations of a vast, cumbrous, slow-moving machine, with a great
many more cogs than drivers, through which no regiment or any other
body could pass rapidly. The time required in