A fortnight later saw the crowd in their old position, but with countenances in which it was difficult to say whether anxiety or anger predominated.
"Fellows, it is terminating just as the Adjutant prophesied a short time ago in this very place," said a Captain slightly past the prime of life, but of vigorous build. "In trying to keep the men out of dress coats, the Colonel and Lieutenant-Colonel have got themselves into all manner of trouble, and there is no let-up with old Pigey. I saw them this morning both as cheerful as crickets, and determined to have the matter thoroughly investigated."
"Did they intimate any opinion as to what we ought to do?" inquired the Adjutant.
"Not a word. In that respect they say just as they did before they were placed in close confinement, that it is a case in which each man must act for himself. They are willing to shoulder the responsibility of their own acts, and were very indignant when they heard that Pigey had ordered the other Brigade under arms, and two pieces of artillery to be trained upon our camp, as if the whole Regiment was guilty of mutiny, when there was not at
the same time a more quiet or orderly Regiment in camp."
"They understand," remarked the Adjutant, "however, why that was done. The General must have something to justify this unusually harsh treatment. A charge of simple disobedience of orders would not do it, so he charges them with mutiny, and trumps up this apprehension and parade to appear consistent. The Lieutenant-Colonel anticipated it, I know. I heard him say, while under simple arrest, that he believed that after three o'clock they would be placed in close confinement, and on the strength of it some letters were sent by a civilian giving full details. Well, I am glad that they are in good spirits."
"In the very best," replied the Captain, "although the General starts as if he intended giving them a tough through. The Sibley that they were turned into late last night, was put up over ground so wet that you couldn't make a track upon it without it would fill with water, and the Lieutenant-Colonel had to sleep upon this ground with a single blanket, as it was late when his servant Charlie came to the guard with his roll of blankets, and the General would not permit him to pass. In consequence he awoke this morning chilled, wet through, and with a fair start for a high fever. And then they are denied writing material, books, even a copy of the Regulations. The General relented sufficiently, to tell an aid to inform them, that they might correspond with their families if they would submit the correspondence first to inspection at Division Head-quarters; to which they replied—that 'the General might insult them, but could not compel them to humiliate their families.' No one is permitted to
see them unless by special permission of the General."
"And when I saw those three guards to-day pacing about that Sibley," excitedly spoke the Virginia Captain, "I felt like mounting a cracker-box in camp and asking the men to follow me, and find out on what grounds, this puss-in-boots outraged in this way men more well-meaning and determined than himself in the suppression of this rebellion. But it will all come right. They are not to be crowded clear out of sight in a single day. One of my men told me that he was present on duty when that wharf-rat of an Adjutant, that the exhorting Colonel is trying to make an Adjutant-General of, came into the General's tent with the Lieutenant-Colonel, and he said that the General asked the Colonel whether he was still determined to disobey the lawful order of his superior officer, the Commanding General of the Division?
"'The legality of the order is what I question,' said the Colonel. 'An order to be lawful should at least be reasonable. That order is unreasonable, unjust to the men, and I cannot conscientiously obey it.'