what the
District men would do, we are finally ordered into the field as a part
of the Chickfield expedition, originally designed for the capture of
Dregsville, I believe; an object which may have been slightly interfered
with by its detailed announcement about a week beforehand in one of the
Philadelphia papers. The expedition consisted of the First, Third,
Fifth, and Ninth Battalions of District of Columbia Volunteers, the
First New Hampshire, the Ninth New York, and the Seventeenth
Pennsylvania, which _would_ call itself the First. I think four other
regiments from the same State did the same thing, it being a cardinal
principle with them, perhaps, that each regiment was to claim two
different names and three different numbers, and that at least four
other regiments were fiercely to dispute with it each name and each
number: for example, there was the

First Pennsylvania Artillery, }
calling itself the... }
}
First Pennsylvania Militia, Infantry, } First
calling itself the... } Pennsylvania
} Regiment.
First Pennsylvania Volunteers, Infantry,}
calling itself the... }
}
First Pennsylvania Volunteers, Infantry,}
calling itself, and called by }
the Governor, the... }

And for another example there was a regiment which called itself the
'Swishtail Carbines,' after a beastly ornament in the hats of its men;
the 'Shine Musketoons,' after their lieutenant-colonel; the '289th
Pennsylvania Volunteers,' after the State series of numbers, which began
with 280 or thereabout; and the 'First Regiment of the Pennsylvania
Volunteer Reserve Corps, Breech-Loading Carbineers,' and doubtless by
other names, though I don't remember them.

Besides this tremendous host--we had never seen so large a force
together, and thought it the most invincible of armadas--we had a
battery of artillery, composed of three or four different kinds of guns,
as the fashion was in the good old days of our company posts, wherefrom
we were just emerging in a chrysalis state, and also two companies of
cavalry; one a real live company of regulars, commanded by Captain
Cautle, of the Third Dragoons, the other led by Captain (he called
himself major, and his company a battalion) Cutts, formerly and since an
enterprising me