n.

In our armies the full allowances of camp equipage are not permitted.
Field and staff officers have only three wall tents, and company
officers only the same shelter tents as the men. The trains very rarely
encamp with the regiments. The tents of the men front on streets from
fifteen to twenty feet wide, each company having a street of its own,
and there is much competition as to the adornment of these. Many
regimental camps are decorated with evergreens in an exceedingly
tasteful manner--particularly during warm weather--chapels, arches,
colonnades, etc., being constructed of rude frameworks, so interwoven
with pine boughs that they present a very elegant appearance.

The daily life of a camp is as follows: At an hour appointed by orders,
varying according to the season of the year, the camp is roused by the
reveille. The old notion that soldiers should be waked before daybreak
in all seasons and all weathers has fortunately been exploded, and the
reveille is not generally sounded in winter till six o'clock. In
pleasant weather the men are formed upon the color line, where they
stack their arms. Breakfast is the next matter in order: after that the
mounting of the guard for the day and the detail of detachments for
picket and other duties. The prisoners are put to work in cleaning up
the camp, and squad drills occupy the morning. About noon the dinner
call is sounded; then come more drills and in the latter part of the
afternoon the dress parade of the regiment. This closes the military
labors of the day. In the evening there are schools for instructions in
tactics, and the time is passed in any amusements that may offer
themselves. About half past eight the tattoo is beaten, when every one,
not absent on duty, must be in camp ready to answer to his name; and
shortly after, the beat of taps proclaims that the military day is
ended, and lights must be extinguished--a regulation not very strictly
enforced. Thus pass the days of camp life.

Very different are those assemblages of huts down among the pine forests
of Virginia from the pleasant villages, the thriving towns, and the
prosperous cities of the North--very different the life of the soldier
from that which he enjoyed before rebellion sought to sever the country
which from his cradle he had been taught to consider 'one and
inseparable.'

APHORISMS.--NO. XIV.

A Query for the Thoughtful.--May we not justly say that _spirit_,
everywhere, in its vari