The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 | Page 9

patriotism by making them feel useless, and to wear off the fine edge of their patriotism by subjection to the merest mechanical process of instruction.
But without dwelling longer on a subject still so delicate as this, let it be said that the advantages of the camp of instruction were principally with the officers. These really learned many things they needed to know, and perhaps unlearned some that they needed as much to forget. I have hinted already at one of these latter lessons--that of their own insignificance. Familiarity breeds contempt, even with shoulder straps. It did the captains and majors and colonels, each of whom had been for a time the particular hero of his own village or county, not a little good to find themselves lost in the crowd, and quite overshadowed by the stars of the brigadiers. Even these latter did not look quite so portentous and dazzling when we saw them in whole constellations, paling their ineffectual rays before the luminary of headquarters. Many an ambitious youth, who had come from home with very grand though vague ideas of the personal influence he was to have upon the country's destinies, found it a wholesome exercise to stand in the mud at the gate all day as officer of the guard, and touch his hat obsequiously to the general staff. If there was good stuff in him he soon got over the first disappointment, and learned to put his shoulder more heartily to that of his men, when he found that his time was by no means too valuable to be chiefly spent in very insignificant employments. Some few, it is true, never could have done this, even if they had been brayed in a mortar. I remember one fussy little cavalry adjutant, who never allowed a private to pass him without a salute, or sit down in his presence. I lost sight of the fellow soon afterward, but it was with great satisfaction that I saw his name gazetted a week or two since, 'dismissed the service.'
As for regular instruction in tactics, there was perhaps as much as the nature of the case admitted, to wit, none at all. Every now and then a fine system would be organized, and promulgated in general orders. Sometimes a series of recitations were prescribed that would have dismayed a teachers' institute. Field officers were to say their lessons every evening at headquarters, and head classes from their own line in the forenoon. The company officers in turn were to teach non-commissioned ideas how to shoot. Playing truant was strictly forbidden; careless officers who should 'fail to acquire the lesson set for them' were to be reported, and, I presume, the unlucky man who missed a question would have seen 'the next' go above him till the bright boy of each class had worked his way up to the head. These systems did not prove a failure: they simply never went at all, but were quietly and unanimously ignored by teacher and teachee. Every man was left to thumb his Hardee in private, and find out what he lacked by his daily blunders on drill. These furnished ample subject for private study, as well as for animated discussion among the other military topics that occupied our leisure. Emulation and the fear of ridicule kept even the most indolent at work.
It was amusing to see how rapidly the esprit de corps--their own favorite word, which they took infinite pleasure in repeating on all occasions--grew upon our newly made warriors. How learned they were upon all the details of 'the service,' and how particularly jealous of the honors and importance of their own particular 'arm!' I used to listen with infinite relish to the discussion in our colonel's quarters, which happened to be a favorite rendezvous for the field officers of some half dozen different regiments, during the idle hours of the long winter evenings. No matter how the conversation commenced, it was sure to come down to this at last, and cavalry, infantry, and artillery blazed away at each other in a voluble discussion that was like Midshipman Easy's triangular duel multiplied by six.
'There's no use talking, colonel, you never have done anything against us in a fair hand-to-hand fight, and you never can.'
(You on this occasion may be supposed to be cavalry, personified in a long, lantern-jawed attorney from Iowa, while us stands for infantry, represented by an ex-drover from Indiana.)
'Never done anything, eh?' replies the attorney, who, on the strength of a commission and mustache of at least six months' date, ranks as quite a veteran in the party; 'what did you do at Borodino? Pretty show you made there when we came charging down upon you!'
'Oh, that was all somebody's fault--what's his name's, you know, that commanded there. Didn't