well as loyal soldiers. Ça va sans dire in 1861, — particularly when you were engaged to your Amanda the evening before you started, as was the case with many a stalwart brave and many a mighty man of a corporal or sergeant in our ranks.
We were thrilled and solemnized by the stately ceremony of the oath. This again was most dramatic. A grand public recognition of a duty. A reavowal of the fundamental belief that our system was worthy of the support, and our Government of the confidence, of all loyal men. And there was danger in the middle distance of our view into the future, — danger of attack, or dangerous duty of advance, just enough to keep any trifler from feeling that his pledge was mere holiday business.
So, under the cloudless blue sky, we echoed in unison the sentences of the oath. A little low murmur of rattling arms, shaken with the hearty utterance, made itself heard in the pauses. Then the band crashed in magnificently.
We were now miserable mercenaries, serving for low pay and rough rations. Read the Southern papers and you will see us described. “Mudsills,” — that, I believe, is the technical word. By repeating a form of words after a gentleman in a glazed cap and black raiment, we had suffered change into base assassins, the offscouring of society, starving for want of employment, and willing to “imbrue our coarse fists in fraternal blood” for the sum of eleven dollars a month, besides hard-
