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The roll was called at reveille, drill, retreat and tattoo. The boys had “words set to music” for nearly all the calls. The breakfast call was rather inelegantly expressed when infantry and cavalry troops were camped close together. The foot soldiers, not having horses to groom and feed, had their breakfast the first thing after reveille. Then they would stand around, and as the cavalry bugler-boys would sound the breakfast call after stables, the heroes of the knapsack would chorus:
“Go and get your breakfast,
Breakfast without meat.”
But a cavalry poet tried his hand, and after that whenever the infantry fellows shouted the above at us to the tune of breakfast call, we all joined in the refrain:
“Dirty, dirty doughboy,
Dirty, dirty feet.”
That settled it. The doughboys soon fell back. If they had not, there might have been a riot, for our poet was at work on another verse that he said would settle their hash. Judging from the result of his first effort, I can readily see that the infantry had a narrow escape.
We had inspection every Sunday morning after stables. Each company was looked over by its first sergeant. Then the captains would appear and take charge. If it were to be a regimental inspection, all the companies would be marched to the parade-ground, and the colonel or regimental commander would be the inspecting officer. Every now and then a brigade review would follow the inspection. It was fun for the brigadier, or inspector, but after the rear rank privates had been in the saddle two hours or more, sitting bolt upright, with eyes fixed square to the front while waiting to have the inspector come round to them, and go through the motions of examining their carbines, revolvers, sabers and equipments, the affair became tedious.
But our regiment was blessed with an excellent band. The members rode white horses, and on all grand reviews and parades they took position on the right of the regiment. Whenever the inspection was particularly protracted and severe, the band would play inspiring selections, and many a poor fellow who was on the point of asking permission to fall out of the ranks, would cheer up as the strains of “The Girl I Left Behind Me,” or some other popular air, would reach his ear. Survivors of the Army of the Potomac—and all other armies—will recall that the playing of a single tune as the comrades rushed forward into the heat of battle, was worth more than the spread-eagle speeches of scores of generals. The soldier that could muster backbone enough to turn tail and run when his comrades were presenting a solid front to the enemy, and the bands were playing national airs, was made of queer material, indeed.
On one of these Sunday morning inspections, Taylor remarked to me in a low tone of voice: