too. He was not a
commander who made allowances for time, distance, weather, or anything
else. You had to execute his order whether it was possible or not. And
there was only one form of marching in his manual of tactics, and that
was the double-quick. He treated you with every sort of insolence and
disrespect, and the bravest of you didn't dare to say a word. You could
face the death-storm at Donelson and Vicksburg, and give back blow
for blow; but when he clawed your whiskers, and pulled your hair, and
twisted your nose, you had to take it. When the thunders of war were
sounding in your ears you set your faces toward the batteries, and
advanced with steady tread; but when he turned on the terrors of his
war whoop you advanced in the other direction, and mighty glad of the
chance, too. When he called for soothing-syrup, did you venture to throw
out any side-remarks about certain services being unbecoming an officer
and a gentleman? No. You got up and got it. When he ordered his pap
bottle and it was not warm, did you talk back? Not you. You went to work
and warmed it. You even descended so far in your menial office as to
take a suck at that warm, insipid stuff yourself, to see if it was
right--three parts water to one of milk, a touch of sugar to modify the
colic, and a drop of peppermint to kill those immortal hiccoughs. I can
taste that stuff yet. And how many things you learned as you went along!
Sentimental young folks still take stock in that beautiful old saying
that when the baby smiles in his sleep, it is because the angels
are whispering to him. Very pretty, but too thin--simply wind on the
stomach, my friends. If the baby proposed to take a walk at his usual
hour, two o'clock in the morning, didn't you rise up promptly and
remark, with a mental addition which would not improve a Sunday-school
book much, that that was the very thing you were about to propose
yourself? Oh! you were under good discipline, and as you went fluttering
up and down the room in your undress uniform, you not only prattled
undignified baby-talk, but even tuned up your martial voices and tried
to sing!--Rock a-by Baby in the Tree-top, for instance. What a spectacle
far an Army of the Tennessee! And what an affliction for the neighbors,
too; for it is not everybody within, a mile around that likes military
music at three in the morning. And, when you had been keeping this sort
of thing up two or three hours, and your little velvet head int