djutant at the dinner table, settling discussions _ex cathedra_ in a
sharp tone, and ordering his companions to help him to dishes, as thus:
'Sergeant-Major, p'tatoes!' 'Oates, beef!' 'Hurry up with those beans!'
To be monosyllabic, rude to his superiors and equals, and overbearing to
his inferiors in rank, this fledgling soldier--our comrade of a few days
since, and presently the subordinate of most of us, through standing
still while we went ahead--used to think the perfection and essence of
the military system. And then that smug-faced, smooth-tongued,
dirty-looking chaplain, with his second-hand shirt collars and slopshop
morality--was it whiskey or brandy that his breath smelt oftenest of? He
was the first chaplain I had seen, and I confess his rank breath, dirty
linen, and ranker and dirtier hypocrisy, gave me a disgust toward his
order that it took long months and many good men to obliterate.

The best part of May we spent in drilling and idling and grumbling, and
some of us, not so hard worked as Sergeant-Major Jenkins, in the true
military style of conviviality, usually terminating in an abrupt entry
in the orderly book, opposite the name of the follower of Bacchus,
'Drunk; two extra tours guard duty;' or 'Drunk again; four extra tours
knapsack drill.' Now, the knapsack drill, as practised by well-informed
and duty-loving sergeants of the guard, simply consists in requiring the
delinquent to shoulder, say, for two hours in every six, a knapsack
filled with stones, blankets, or what not, until it weighs twenty,
thirty, or perhaps forty pounds, according to the nature of the case and
the officer who orders the punishment.

Quartermaster-Sergeant Oates and I went up, one afternoon, with
Lieutenant Smallweed, Corporal Bledsoe of our old company, and two or
three others, to see the famous 'Seventh' drill, out at Camp Cameron,
which I suppose nearly everybody knows is situated about a mile and a
half north of the President's house, on the 14th-street road, and just
opposite to a one-horse affair that used to call itself 'Columbian
College,' but which, after passing through a course of weak
semi-religio-secessionism, gradually dried up, leaving its skin to the
surgeon-general for a hospital. The afternoon we selected to visit Camp
Cameron turned out to be an extra occasion. General Thomas, the
adjutant-general of the army, was to present a stand of colors to the
'Seventh' on behalf of Mr. Secretary Cameron, on behalf