The War Fever Again—Going to a Shooting Match—Over the Mountains to Enlist—A Question of Age—Sent to Camp Meigs—The Recruit and the Corporal—The Trooper's Outfit—A Cartload of Military Traps—Paraded for Inspection—An Officer who Had Been through the Mill.
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RETURNED to Berlin very much discouraged. There had not been anything pleasant about our camp life in Troy—the food was poorly cooked, the camp discipline was on the go-as-you-please order at first, and sleeping on a hard bunk was not calculated to inspire patriotism in lads who had always enjoyed the luxury of a feather bed. Yet the thought that I was a Union soldier, and a Griswold cavalryman to boot, had acted as an offset to the hardships of camp life, and after my return home the “war fever” set in again. The relapse was more difficult to prescribe for than the first attack. The desire to reach the front was stimulated by the taunts of the wiseacres about the village who would bear down on me whenever I chanced to be in their presence, as follows:
“Nice soldier, you are!”
“How do the rebels look?”
“Sent for your father to come and get you, they say.”
“Did they offer you a commission as jigadier brindle?”
“When do you start again?”