In the morning I was on time. With a bland smile the Colonel informed me that my duties would be confined to superintending guard-mounting, instructing the sentinels in their duties, and to organizing into squads, to drill as many as possible of the several thousand conscripts in camp.
I must confess this was putting it upon a sick man pretty heavy, but I determined to do the best I could for the present. Upon inquiring if I had any assistants, I was told, “yes, Captain, Frank Schaffer, but he isn’t here much.”
I had never met Schaffer, but knew who he was, so I started out to hunt him up. I soon found him, and reported my orders. He laughed, and told me not to trouble myself much about the conscripts, “unless,” said he, “you want to be driven as crazy as a March hare.”
I soon found that he was right, for of all the mean, filthy, ignorant, God-forsaken people it had ever been my lot to encounter, these conscripts exceeded all. You might drill them for hours without making the least impression, and when at last exhausted patience would draw forth language rather strong and unmilitary, you were sure to hear something like “I don’t know nuthin ’bout soldiern, nor darned ef I keer ’bout larnen, and jist say I might go home, mister, an’ I’m off.”
I soon found it utterly impossible to do anything with them, and took the responsibility of directing my attention to the lighter duty of mounting guard, for I knew the commandant would never be the wiser, as he seldom came out of his office except to go home. As to looking after the camp it was something he never thought of; indeed, never having had any experience as a soldier, he scarcely knew one end of a musket from the other.
My guard was composed of this conscript material too, and a pretty guard it was. They thought nothing of smoking their pipes when on duty, or halloaing to their companions at a distance; they would carry their muskets in all sorts of fashions, but generally dragging it by the bayonet, and as to keeping them on post when they felt hungry, that was out of the question, although I punished many of them severely for this breach of discipline.
One day I was making one of my usual rounds, when I espied a sentinel in front of the officer of the day’s tent resting his arm and chin upon the muzzle of his gun. When I approached he never moved, but began to whistle a lively tune. I stopped directly in front of him and asked “what he was doing there?”
“Wall, not much of anything,” he replied, “looking after that ar feller’s things back thar, I believe,” at the same time kicking back towards the officer’s tent, and still in the same attitude.
“Come,” said I, “straighten yourself up; have you never been taught to salute your officers when they approach?”
“No I haven’t, and I don’t keer much about larnin,” was his reply; “say, mister, what did that thar rig cost you’ve got on?”