ed no varnish to make him believe them cavalry.

But every man you met, mounted or footman, carried in his belt the
broad, straight, double-edged bowie-knife, useful alike for war-like,
or culinary purposes; and few, indeed, did not balance it with the
revolver. In some of the crack corps this was strictly prohibited; for
the difficulty has ever been in armies to teach the men to use
efficiently the _one_ weapon belonging to them; and that there is
no safety in a multitude.

Long before the first scene of the bloody drama was done--and stern
realities had taken the gilt from the pomp and circumstance of war--the
actors had cast aside all the "properties" they did not absolutely
need. The exhaustion of their first few battles, or a couple of
Jackson's marches, taught them that in this race for life and limb,
there was no need to carry extra weight. I constantly had brought to
mind the anecdote of the Crimean Zouaves, about to charge a redan, who
answered their officer's query as to the number of cartridges they had
by tapping their saber bayonets.

The arriving regiments were inspected, mustered into the Confederate
service and drilled by competent officers; vacancies were filled; and
such wanting equipments, as could be supplied, bestowed upon them. They
were then brigaded, and after time enough to become accustomed to their
commanders and to each other, were forwarded to points where, at the
moment, troops appeared most needed.

The three points in Virginia, considered as vital, were the Peninsula,
formed by the James and York rivers, Norfolk, and the open country
around and about Orange Courthouse to the Potomac. Fortress Monroe
impregnable to assault, by the land side, and so easily provisioned and
garrisoned by sea, was looked upon as the most dangerous neighbor. From
its walls, the legions of the North might, at any moment, swoop down
upon the unprotected country around it and establish a foothold, from
which it would be hard to dislodge them, as at Newport's News. Its
propinquity to Norfolk, together with the vast preponderance of the
United States in naval power, made an attack upon that place the most
reasonable supposition. The State of Virginia had already put it in as
good defense as the time permitted. General Huger, a distinguished
officer of Ordnance from the U.S. service, had at once been sent there;
and his preparations had been such that an unfinished earth work, at
Sewell's Point, stood for four ho