iting-desk is the top of the stone wall
I have alluded to, so you must criticise neither my penmanship nor
my style. I received a letter from father on Tuesday afternoon,
and, thank God! I enter the service with his full approbation. The
discipline enforced here is strict, our rations are good, fruit is
very abundant, and to be had for the asking; so that if you will
only write soon and often, there will be little else required to
fill the wants of

Your affectionate brother, Willard.

Fortunately for their future comfort, the Harris Light Cavalry, at the
very outset of its military career, was placed under the charge of a
rigid and skilful disciplinarian--one Captain A. N. Duffie--who, having
graduated honorably at the celebrated French military school, St. Cyr,
possessed all the martial enthusiasm as well as personal peculiarities
of his excitable countrymen.

The captain either was, or believed himself to be, an eloquent speaker,
and his efforts at rhetorical display, added to his French pronunciation
of English words, became a source of great amusement to the men. He was
wont to harangue them, as if they were about to enter upon a sanguinary
battle. The old stone walls of the peaceful farm were pictured as
bristling with the enemy's bayonets, and the boys were called on to
"charge" at the hidden foe and capture him.

"One morning," says Captain Glazier, "after a week spent in drill, we
were all surprised by receiving an order to 'fall into line,' and
discovered that the object of this movement was to listen to a
Napoleonic harangue from Captain Duffie. So loud had been our protests,
so manifest our rebellious spirit on the subject of fortifying a
peaceful farm on the banks of the Hudson, that the captain undoubtedly
feared he might not be very zealously supported by us in his future
movements, and, like Napoleon on assuming command of the Army of Italy,
sought to test the devotion of his men. After amusing us a-while in
broken English, appealing to our patriotism and honor, he at length
shouted:

"'Now, as many of you as are ready to follow me to the cannon's mouth,
take one step to the front!'

"This _ruse_ was perfectly successful, and the whole line took the
desired step."

The time passed pleasantly enough in this camp of instruction, despite
the monotony of drill and guard duty, and, by the time the order to
break camp reached the men, they were well advanced i