school, worked in the same shop, sung in the same
choir, and belonged to the same base-ball club, to assume their new
relations.

Privates would address their officer, 'I say, Bill, have you got any
tobacco?' Officers would reply, 'Do you not know, sir, the proper method
of addressing me?' Private would exclaim, 'Well, I guess now you're
puttin' on airs, a'n't you?' Pompous colonels strutted about in a blaze
of new uniforms, and even line officers then considered themselves of
some consequence; while a brigadier-general was a sort of a demigod--a
man to be revered as something infallible. Now-a-days old veterans care
very little for even the two stars of a major-general, unless they know
that the wearer has some other claims to respect than his shoulder
straps.

As matters gradually became arranged, the troops were provided with
tents, and encamped in the vicinity. Never was guard duty more
vigilantly performed than in those camps around Washington. Every one of
us came to the capital with the expectation of being immediately
despatched to Virginia, and ordered to pitch into a miscellaneous fight
with the rebels. Rebel guerillas and spies were supposed to be lurking
in the surroundings of the capital, and 'taking notes' in all the camps.
Woe betide the unsuspicious stranger who might loiter curiously around
the encampments. With half a dozen bayonets at his breast he was hurried
off in utter amazement to the guard house. At night the sentinels saw
'in every bush' a lurking rebel. Shots were pattering all night in every
direction. Unfortunate straggling cows were frequently reduced to beeves
by the bullets of the wary guardians. The colonel's horse broke loose
one night, and, while browsing around, his long, flowing tail, the
colonel's pride, was reduced to an ignominious 'bob' by a bullet, which
neatly severed it near the root. Many was the trigger pulled at me, many
the bullet sent whizzing at my head, as I returned to camp after an
evening in the city. Fortunately, the person fired at was usually
safe--any one within the circle of a hundred feet diameter was likely to
receive the ball. One evening, about dusk, going into camp, I took a
running jump over a ditch, and this rapid motion so frightened an
honest German sentinel--probably a little muddled with lager--that he
actually forgot to fire, and came at me in a more natural way with his
musket clubbed. I escaped a broken head at the expense of a severely
bruised a