threatened "if the cavalry did not do better, he would put them
_in the army_."

One day, an infantry brigade on the march to Chancellorsville had halted
to rest on the pike, near where a narrow road turned off. A cavalryman
was seen approaching, in a fast gallop, plainly, in a great hurry. The
infantry viewed his approach with great interest, prepared to salute him
with neat and appropriate remarks as he passed, by way of making him
lively.

Just before he got to the head of the brigade he reached the narrow road
and started up it. Instantly a dozen "infants" began to wave their arms
excitedly, and shout in loud earnest voices--"Mister, stop there! don't
go a step farther; for heaven's sake _don't_ go up that road." The
trooper, startled by this appeal, and the warning gestures of the men,
approaching him, pulled in his fast-going horse, and stopped, very
impatiently. He said in a sharp tone, "What is the matter, why mustn't I
go up this road? Say quick, I'm in a big hurry." "Don't go, we beg you;
you'll never come back alive." "Humph! is that so?" said this trooper
(who had been near breaking a blood vessel in his impatience at being
stopped, but cooled off a little, at this ominous remark)--"But what's
ahead? what's the danger? The road seems quiet?" "Well, Sonny, _that's_
the danger. Haven't you heard about it?" "Now, Sonny," was a term of
endearment, which from an "infant" always exasperated the feelings of a
cavalryman to the last degree; turned the milk of kindness in a
horseman's breast into the sourest clabber; and it instantly stirred up
this trooper. "Look here men, don't fool with me. Tell me what is the
danger up this road," "Well! we thought we ought to let you know, before
you expose yourself. General Hill has offered a reward of Five Dollars
for a dead man with spurs on, and if you go up that lonesome road some
of these here _soldiers_ will shoot you to get the reward." "Oh pshaw!"
cried the disgusted victim, clapping spurs to his horse, and away he
rode, leaving the grinning and delighted "infants" behind, and leaving,
too, his _opinion_ of them, and their joke, in language that needed no
interpreter.

This sort of thing was going on, all the time. The infantry and
artillery _would_ do it. With many, particularly the artillery, who knew
better, it was _only joking_, the soldier-instinct to stir up _any_
passer-by. But with many, especially the infantry, who were not as much
"up to snuff" as the arti