Now, an order for a Fall Drill means war; because it entails a long day of marching, a prodigal expenditure of blank cartridges, and, at headquarters, bother and worry beyond reckoning.
Yes, when one of these orders comes down to us we awake to an activity which calls for the largest size of A in the spelling of it. The quartermaster rises to a height of importance hard to estimate, while his sergeant—upon whom devolves the bulk of the work—sinks into a settled gloom of corresponding depth. The surgeons find themselves pestered with requests to lay in a better brand of liniment than the stuff they took out with them the year before, which, it unanimously is asserted, was too blistering in its effect. The adjutant grimly sits at his desk and wrestles with the "General Order" until he reaches a state half-way between utter misery and hopeless atheism. Why? Because he knows to a dead certainty that a copy of it will find its way into every Sunday paper in town, and therefore tries with might and main—to say nothing of the aid of the old order-files for ten years back—to make of it a lucid and grammatical fragment of English prose,—an attempt in which he most signally fails. And the colonel: well, he has the task of tasks, for it becomes his duty and privilege to evolve the plan of campaign; and the campaign, mind you, must be one that can be brought to a successful issue in a single day. Think of it! Do you suppose Sherman, or even Grant himself, could have met without concern such a demand upon strategic resources?
Days in advance of active operations, the field officers fill up their cigar-cases and run out into the country to look over the ground; constructing, upon their return, amazing maps, wherein—on generously large sheets of brown wrapping-paper—a tangle of blue lines and red ones serves to make plain the positions for the attack and the defence. Remarkable productions, those maps!—with long straight marks to indicate the roads, and zigzag lines to denote fences, and aggregations of pretzel-like symbols to show where the woods lie; and many a mystic sign besides to stand for as many more features in the landscape. Oh, we couldn't do without the maps, for a campaign that has to be settled between one sunrise and the next sunset must be managed very understandingly; and yet all this doesn't seem to keep the enlisted man from damning up hill and down both the maps and their makers when he finds himself one of a skirmish-line stationed in what ought to be a dry ditch, but isn't.
Well, last fall we got our annual order, went through with the usual week's worry at headquarters, and then railroaded the regiment out to Farlow's Farm for its day of field work. The fight was a stubborn one, and the amount of powder burned was far in excess of anything before known, for we had raised a regimental fund and had purchased with it some odd thousands of cartridges in addition to the quantity issued by the State.
The tide of battle swept back and forth until well into the afternoon, but finally the smoke-cloud lifted—because there were no more cartridges to be fired away—and in the lull a flag of truce was sent by the lieutenant-colonel, who humbly begged permission to bury his dead, and also announced his readiness to accept any decent sort of terms, since the umpires had declared his four companies to have been annihilated. Now, the lieutenant-colonel and his men, you understand, represented the enemy, and since we had been devoting the day to his destruction we sent up a mighty cheer when his submission was made known, voted the whole affair an admirable illustration of grand strategy, and prepared to leave the field to solitude and the sorrowful contemplation of farmer Farlow, its owner.
We formed line, then broke by fours to the right, and started off along the tree-shaded country road. Up at the head of the long column the drums rolled and rattled, while the bugles and fifes joined merrily together in the crazy, rollicking "Wild Irishman" quickstep—an air which never fails to send the Third into its famous, swinging gait. By turning in my saddle, as I rode in my place with the staff, I could see the regiment behind me as it came solidly tramping along—company after company of blue-clad men; rank on rank of snowy helmets; file upon file of sloping rifle-barrels; and midway of all, the colors, rustling their silken folds in time with the cadenced tread of the men who bore them. Far in the rear glowed a ruddy October sunset, making a fit background for the whole living, moving picture. It was a stirring sight and a beautiful one, and I glanced back again and again to see it, for the picturesque side of the service has a peculiar charm for me.
"Jove! but that's pretty!" said Van Sickles, who rode next me on the staff, reining his horse over a bit closer to mine, and nodding back towards the following column. "People sometimes ask me what earthly attraction I can find in volunteer soldiering. Well, a sight like that certainly has strong attractions for me," and he gave another long look towards the rear.
"Yes, this is one of the things outsiders miss," said I, bringing to bear upon the curb a light pressure, as I noticed that my horse gradually was outstepping the others, "and taking it all together, Van, the outsiders miss a great deal."
"That's so, Jack," assented Van Sickles, "but it's hard to make them see it. Time and again I've tried to explain why I went into the service, and why I stay in it; but I've given up that sort of thing now, because my friends only laugh and say, 'Well, you have got the fever, Van, but you can't give it to us.'" Here his horse stumbled slightly, but he easily lifted him, and then asked, "Say, old man, who's this Captain Penryhn?" and he waved his hand towards an officer in foreign uniform who was riding next our surgeon.
"Why, you met him," said I, "just before you were sent over to join 'the enemy.'"