e-leader
handsomely, the effect on the eye was almost as fine. The band of the
Eighth Maine joined us at the entrance of the town, and escorted us in.
Sergeant Rivers said ecstatically afterwards, in describing the
affair,--"And when dat band wheel in before us, and march on,--my God! I
quit dis world altogeder." I wonder if he pictured to himself the many
dusky regiments, now unformed, which I seemed to see marching up behind
us, gathering shape out of the dim air.

I had cautioned the men, before leaving camp, not to be staring about
them as they marched, but to look straight to the front, every man; and
they did it with their accustomed fidelity, aided by the sort of
spontaneous eye-for-effect which is in all their melodramatic natures.
One of them was heard to say exultingly afterwards,--"We didn't look to
de right nor to de leff. I didn't see notin' in Beaufort. Eb'ry step was
worth a half-a-dollar." And they all marched as if it were so. They knew
well that they were marching through throngs of officers and soldiers
who had drilled as many months as we had drilled weeks, and whose eyes
would readily spy out every defect. And I must say, that, on the whole,
with a few trivial exceptions, those spectators behaved in a manly and
courteous manner, and I do not care to write down all the handsome
things that were said. Whether said or not, they were deserved; and
there is no danger that our men will not take sufficient satisfaction in
their good appearance. I was especially amused at one of our recruits,
who did not march in the ranks, and who said, after watching the
astonishment of some white soldiers,--"De buckra sojers look like a man
who been-a-steal a sheep,"--that is, I suppose, sheepish.

After passing and repassing through the town, we marched to the
parade-ground and went through an hour's drill, forming squares and
reducing them, and doing other things which look hard on paper and are
perfectly easy in fact; and we were to have been reviewed by General
Saxton, but he had been unexpectedly called to Ladies Island, and did
not see us at all, which was the only thing to mar the men's enjoyment.
Then we marched back to camp, (three miles,) the men singing the "John
Brown Song," and all manner of things,--as happy creatures as one can
well conceive.

It is worth mentioning, before I close, that we have just received an
article about "Negro Troops," from the London "Spectator," which is so
admirably true to our