"Bill, what day is this?"
"Why, don't you know? This is Sunday."
"By George! is that so? Well, there's no rest for the wicked!"
And then the men would begin to talk about home, and somehow over the rudeness of war and the weariness of the march a breath of hallowed air would seem to waft itself, and the far-off sound of Sabbath bells would seem to steal, and the dim faces of distant loved ones would rise before us, until the spell would perhaps be broken by another chorus of profanity.
By force of stern necessity we became a good marching regiment long before we had half learned tactical drill, and the discipline did several important things for us. Our marching was not peaceful; it was through a hostile country. The enemy's cavalry hung about our flanks and rear and the sound of cannon was frequent. We had as yet no fighting but we were constantly threatened, and that helped the discipline. It taught us unceasing vigilance and the need of perpetual readiness; it also tried the nerves of our officers. The unfit ones began to drop off. First our lieutenant-colonel, then our major was smitten with what the men called "cannon fever." Their health failed suddenly, their resignations were offered and accepted and we were well rid of them. The captain of Company A, who now became major, was a fine type of the class of men by whom our volunteer army was mainly officered. He was a plain citizen who had been superintendent in a manufactory, and his military knowledge was only such as could be gained in a militia company. He had however, a strong soldierly instinct, and better still, his personal character compelled respect. Familiar in manner with no "airs," yet always dignified and firm; modest, yet as we found when the test came, unflinchingly brave; with keen natural intelligence, quick to grasp a situation and prompt in action he proved that good officers are born, not made. His awkwardness on horseback afforded amusement only for a little while. In a few weeks he rode like a cavalryman, and every fresh trial of his quality raised him in our esteem and affection.
The weeding process worked among the men in a different way. The old and weak and physically unfit broke down. Some of them died; a number of them were discharged from the service. At the end of a month we had lost more officers and as many men as a smartly-contested battle would have cost us, and instead of being weaker we were distinctly stronger for it. The law of the survival of the fittest was beginning to work. In another way the weeding process proceeded. Every army requires a great many non-combatants as its servants. There must be waggoners, clerks at headquarters, ambulance drivers, hospital attendants, "detailed men" of many sorts, and each regiment has to furnish its quota of these. When, therefore, an order would come to detail a man, perhaps for ambulance driver, the colonel would send it down to a captain with the hint, "Detail the worst dead beat in your company." Sometimes these non-combatant positions were sought by those who had no stomach for the fight, and thus, in different ways, our thinned ranks became cleaner.
We learned other things by the discipline of the march. We learned to live as soldiers must. Life in a well-ordered camp and camp life in the field are vastly different. The army lived in shelter tents. These were simply pieces of cotton cloth about six feet square, and each man carried one piece on his knapsack. Two or three buttoned together and stretched over such poles or sticks as could be found, or over muskets set in the ground when nothing else could be had, formed our habitation. We literally carried our houses on our backs. We slept on the ground, or rather, we learned not to sleep on the ground. Pine branches made a luxurious bed, but anything served—dried grass, boughs of saplings, even corn stalks, though they were worse than boarding-house mattresses. I have slept on unthreshed wheat—anything to keep the body from direct contact with the ground, which, even in summer chills one through before morning. Then, wood for fires must be had. Through the hill country of Virginia we used the fences. When the welcome halt was called at evening and arms stacked, it was a sight to see eight or nine hundred men joining with wild cheers in a mad charge on the nearest rail fence. Sometimes our colonel would draw us up in line and give the word, so that all might have an even chance, and then, after a brisk scrimmage the fence would disappear as if by magic. Dry rails made the best of camp-fires, but the skill which men developed at fire-making was wonderful. We had few axes beside the dozen carried by the pioneer corps, whose duty it was to clear obstructions from the road; we had to break up our rails or break down branches as best we could. Our jack-knives did yeoman service. Often green wood alone was available; and I have actually seen fires kindled in the midst of pouring rain with nothing but such apparently impossible materials as green pine saplings.
Two men from each company were detailed as cooks. They were seldom favourites with the men. On the march, and, finally, almost altogether their services were dispensed with. We preferred to do our own cooking, especially when it came to the coffee. Coffee was our chief comfort and our main necessity. We carried it in the haversack, in a little bag with a partition: on one side ground coffee, on the other, the smaller side, a little brown sugar; and we made it generously and drank it strong. Coffee, hardtack, and salt pork were the standard marching rations.
It was curious to notice how men treated the rations question. Three days' supply at a time was dealt out to us. Some of the men would make way with their stock in two days, and then go begging among their comrades. Upon others excessive weariness acted as a stay upon appetite, and the three days' rations would be more than enough. I think these were the men who stood the hardship of the march best. After supper came sleep, the sleep of exhaustion; and then, at day-break, the reveille, roll-call, hasty breakfast (like the supper, of hardtack, pork, and coffee). Then canteens were filled from the nearest available water, knapsacks packed, and precisely at sunrise the column would be formed and the march begun. The rule was, march two hours, rest ten minutes; except at noon, when twenty minutes' rest was allowed.
At these rests the men would lie down wherever they happened to be, and think the hard ground blessed and the time too short. Sometimes, though this was later, during the battle season we had night marches, and as illustrating the result of the discipline of the march even upon new troops, I have seen men, when halt was called at night, lie down in the dusty road and fall instantly fast asleep; but at the low-spoken order, "Fall in, men!" they would as instantly rise, and, before they were fully awake step into their proper places in the line. Under the discipline of the march, in three months' time we had learned lessons which the best-trained city militia regiments never learn and which made us veterans in comparison with them.