REGIMENTAL PROPHETS.

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final visit and adieu. When, at the end of the week, the barracks were again filled, the mess-gatherings were not so jovial. The serious business of war loomed up before us as an imminent and dread reality. It was near enough to engender more of thoughtfulness than characterized the first merry holiday assembling of the battalion. Then it was that the imaginative prophets launched the regiment on the limitless expanse of speculation. Our destination, when we should see the first encounter, how many would be killed, whether or not we should get down South before the Rebellion was put down, the military qualities of McClellan, the probable freeing of the slaves, the comparative merits of certain officers in the regiment, these were a few of the questions mooted and irrevocably settled in advance by the knowing ones. Most of the men were much better posted in the science and probabilities of war than they pretended to be two years later.

October 5 the Fourteenth witnessed the presentation of the colors to the Thirteenth Regiment, which departed the next day for the seat of war; the Twelfth having gone more than a week previously. Monday, October 6, was a memorable day in the history of the Fourteenth. It was the occasion of the first battalion drill and dress-parade. Col. Robert Wilson appeared for the first time to assume command; and Lieut.-Col. T. A. Barker was also in the field, aiding the green officers by his experience. The men were serene in their ignorance of tactics; but ambitious officers of the line, who had been cramming Casey for a fortnight, were in a vertebral cold-shiver temperature. They were very familiar with Casey, -in a book; but it did not take much time to impress them with the difference between tactics on paper and tactics on the drill-ground. There is something magical in the illusiveness of tactics when a fresh pair of shoulder-straps attempts to pin them down to any given That the men got into a snarl, a tangle, a double and twisted, inextricable tactical knot, is tame delineation. That drill caused a good deal of serious reflection, while it was manifest that the Fourteenth contained some of as good material for command as any battalion could desire.

manœuvre.

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The dress-parade was a curiosity. The regiment was without arms, and could not present a very threatening or even imposing appearance. The colonel, when the parade was formed, could not exercise his men in the manual. It may be questioned whether the possession of muskets that day would have inured to the credit of the organization, as the order, "Support arms!" might have brought a right-shoulder shift from the right wing, and a reverse arms from the left. In all this the Fourteenth was not different from other green regiments. All hands were glad when the parade was ended. The next attempt was a marked improvement; and both officers and men rapidly developed that facility in formation and evolution which, with less intelligent troops, is only acquired by a much severer discipline and more protracted exercise. It is to be observed, however, that in no case can high excellence in evolution or manual be attained in a brief space of time.

ON GUARD.

The initiatory rite by which the citizen was practically transformed to the soldier was the detail for guard-duty. We refer to camp-guard primarily, for here it was that the freshdubbed knight stood forth in all his consequential dimensions. He was, perhaps, prepared for this responsible service by liberal assignments to "policing;" but nothing ever created so much disgust per capita, to the unfledged volunteer, as what was known in camp discipline as police-duty. "I enlisted to put down the Rebellion, not to pick up garbage, sweep streets, clean out sinks, and mow brush!" Now, this high-toned, fastidious palladium of the Union learned a great many things in the course of three years; and, before "the cruel war was over," he was far readier to clean out a sink than to fight a battle. Besides, it was a curious fact, that those who, at home, devoted their manly powers to the most ignoble occupations, were most outspoken in their protests against menial service in the army. But guard-duty was another matter. It flattered the green recruit, and we were all green at first; though one month after

SOME LUDICROUS FEATURES.

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muster, such were the marvellous developments, there were none but veterans in the entire command.

It was a striking phenomenon, the rapidity with which the citizen matured into the experienced campaigner; and there was nothing like guard-duty to ripen him. As he sat in his mess, munching his first hard-tack, and soaking his beard with his coffee, he told stories of army experience, amply sufficient to cover all the campaigns from Lodi to Waterloo, or from Bull Run to Appomattox. It was rare amusement for the genuine veteran to behold the burlesque performances of a new battalion, when, at nine-o'clock "guard-mounting," it developed all the grotesqueness of unpractised service, a farce in one act, lasting twenty-four hours, to be repeated next day with slight modifications in the way of doubtful improvement.

In the realm of greenness there was unquestioned democracy, for officers and men vied with each other in tangling all movements and bungling every ceremony. It was a trying ordeal to those officers who desired to show off uniform, sash, Damascus blade, and a form of Achilles to the best advantage. Those who were cool enough to perpetrate a gross blunder, and act as though it were the correct thing, became at once popular all along the line; while he who came very near to tactical exactness, though somewhat nervous and hesitating in execution, was voted "no military man."

Who can forget the first night on guard in the camp at Concord? Arms had not been issued, and a few old worthless muskets were secured with which to give a semblance of prowess to the camp-guard; but there were so few of these obsolete weapons, that each relief was marched out unarmed, and the soldier on duty surrendered his musket with the beat to his successor. The first attempts at camp-guard duty were counted a good joke; and really it amounted to no more, for it was the baldest piece of soldierly masquerading that could well be imagined. The men were not even uniformed, and the regiment had not entered upon its martial dignity sufficiently to give an imposing character to any of its performances. The guard was chiefly set as a discipline for the troops, that they might become famil