Through the thoughtfulness of Captain Rodenbaugh, I was paid some bounty money, which I expended in the purchase of mementoes for my friends, believing that I should never again come home to them.
In the matter of my get-up as a soldier, Captain Rodenbaugh was quite useful to me, and became quite pleasantly interested, taking the trouble to accompany me to the tailor shop, where he gave the necessary directions as to the regulation pattern.
I was to act as his private secretary or company clerk, and I suspect that he also intended to use my good clothes as a sort of a dressed-up dummy, to stand around the office with white gloves on, as a decoy to entice recruits to his roll, pretty much as we see the "walking sign" now a days at recruiting offices.
In the Second Cavalry, the facings, instead of being the ordinary "yaller" of the cavalry, were of an orange color, to distinguish them as the "Dragoons," as they were listed previous to the reorganization of that service just before the war.
I was made a Corporal by the Captain, and had the stripes in a beautiful orange on my arms. The cap was the regulation little fatigue or McClellan style, with the crossed sabers, and the insignia of company and regiment in brass letter—B 2.
At my earnest solicitation, Captain Rodenbaugh sent me away with the first detachment of recruits to Cavalry Headquarters, then Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. Here I had a regular circus every hour of the day, from reveille till retreat or tattoo. It's only those who have seen cavalry recruits drilled with regular cavalry horses and old drilled Sergeants, that can be made to believe the stories that are told of their accomplishments in this direction.
Carlisle Barracks was in crude form, just what the West Point Riding School of to-day is. I was anxious to learn to be a good soldier, and I did learn a good deal—in a mighty short time, too—while I was at Carlisle. I was taught some things there that I thought I had learned thoroughly before I went there. For instance, I had been a long time in Western Texas, and had ridden wild and bucking horses without a saddle, chased buck-rabbits in a zigzag course over hog-wallow prairies in a reckless way that made my head dizzy, but it was reserved for my Drill Sergeant at Carlisle Barracks to show me how simple a matter it was for a trained cavalry horse to throw off a Texas cow-boy. Those old Sergeants—and there were a number of them—had the drill horses trained so thoroughly, and withal so full of tricks, that they beat Buffalo Bill and any circus horses I've ever seen all to pieces.
It was lots of fun for the Sergeants and a few officers and their wives, who were always watching our evolutions from their barrack windows, but it was a little bit rough on some of the boys.
We were given lessons in mounting and dismounting by the hour, till I became so expert that I was relieved of that part of the drill and advanced into a squad who had been there some time, and were soon to be sent off to the front as graduates. We were all obliged to hold the bridle-rein in one and the same way; that is, in the left hand, turned up so that we could see the finger-nails. All the steering had to be done by merely turning or twisting the clenched hand around, keeping it in the same position. There was no hauling back of the reins permitted, except by drawing the hand straight up to the chin to check or tighten the lines; and the forearm must be always directly in front of the pommel of the saddle.
This part of the riding lesson was all new to me. I had always used my hands as I pleased, but here we must all hold the infernal wild horses with one hand turned upside down, and dare not even yank the elbow around without getting a cuss from the Sergeant. There were always two or three Sergeants to each drill; one gave the commands from his position in front, while another old rascal rode behind somewhere to watch our arms and legs and to do the extra cussing.