ers, and the country was surprised
to see the sample of a conscript's choice. The conscript had no choice.
He was callous, and indifferent whether he had a captain or not. Those
who were at first officers had resigned and gone home, because they were
officers. The poor private, a contemptible conscript, was left to howl
and gnash his teeth. The war might as well have ended then and there.
The boys were "hacked," nay, whipped. They were shorn of the locks of
their glory. They had but one ambition now, and that was to get out
of the army in some way or other. They wanted to join the cavalry or
artillery or home guards or pioneer corps or to be "yaller dogs," or
anything.

[The average staff officer and courier were always called "yaller dogs,"
and were regarded as non-combatants and a nuisance, and the average
private never let one pass without whistling and calling dogs. In fact,
the general had to issue an army order threatening punishment for the
ridicule hurled at staff officers and couriers. They were looked upon
as simply "hangers on," or in other words, as yellow sheep-killing dogs,
that if you would say "booh" at, would yelp and get under their master's
heels. Mike Snyder was General George Maney's "yaller dog," and I
believe here is where Joe Jefferson, in Rip Van Winkle, got the name of
Rip's dog Snyder. At all times of day or night you could hear, "wheer,
hyat, hyat, haer, haer, hugh, Snyder, whoopee, hyat, whoopee, Snyder,
here, here," when a staff officer or courier happened to pass. The
reason of this was that the private knew and felt that there was just
that much more loading, shooting and fighting for him; and there are the
fewest number of instances on record where a staff officer or courier
ever fired a gun in their country's cause; and even at this late day,
when I hear an old soldier telling of being on some general's staff,
I always think of the letter "E." In fact, later in the war I was
detailed as special courier and staff officer for General Hood, which
office I held three days. But while I held the office in passing a guard
I always told them I was on Hood's staff, and ever afterwards I made
those three days' staff business last me the balance of the war. I could
pass any guard in the army by using the magic words, "staff officer."
It beat all the countersigns ever invented. It was the "open sesame"
of war and discipline. ]

Their last hope had set. They hated war. To their mi