must take to manage all these!
Fair and square, now, Jack, you feel the fires of military genius in
your big head--do you think that you could disentangle this enormous
coil--put each corps, division, and regiment, in its proper place--at a
day's notice?"

"Oh, I couldn't perhaps do it just to-day; but give me time!"

"Yes, I'll give you to the age of Methuselah, and then if you can manage
it I shall not lose faith in you."

"Come, men, the tents must be up before dark. Sergeant Sprague, your
squad has five tents for its detail. You'll find axes and tools at the
quartermaster's wagon on the hill yonder!" It was the captain who spoke,
and, an instant later, the plot of ground, perhaps an acre and a half in
area, was a scene of rollicking labor. Each company had a street, the
tents--calculated to hold four each, but the number varied, going up
often as high as six--faced each other, leaving room enough for the
company to march in column or in line between the white walls. As the
regiment would be presumably some time on the ground, the canvas tents
rested on the top of a palisade of logs cut in the neighboring woods.
These were five feet or more in length, and when driven into the ground
a foot, and banked by the sticky clay, served excellently as walls upon
which to rest the A tents. Two berths, sometimes four, were fastened
laterally on these walls, frames running up to the center of the A held
the guns, while lines stretched across from above served as wardrobes
for such garments as could be hung up.

All this manoeuvring for space in such close quarters was great fun for
lads accustomed to roomy houses, and careless, almost to slovenliness,
in the matter of keeping things in place. Absurd as these details may
seem, they were all parts, and very important parts, in the life and
training of that mighty host that carried the destiny of the country in
its discipline during four years. There was rigid inspection of quarters
every Sunday morning, and during the week the non-commissioned officers
were expected to see that cleanliness was not intermitted. The company
"street" was "policed" every morning after breakfast, swept and
garnished, that is, with the care of a Dutch housewife. Order is the
first law of the soldier as well as of Heaven, and many a careless lad
brought from his four years' drill method and painstaking that made him
of more value to himself and his neighbors.

Personal traits, too, could be divined