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

not know that his men would have been
worth more if marched from the place of enlistment directly into the
open field, than they were after months in a place where the whole
tendency was to chill their 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