sunlit grove. Few of us, indeed, know how picturesque we are at all times and seasons.
After this beau idéal of a morning toilet comes the ante-prandial drill. Lieutenant W. arrives, and gives us a little appetizing exercise in “Carry arms!” “Support arms!” “By the right flank, march!” “Double quick!
Breakfast follows. My company messes somewhat helter-skelter in a big tent. We have very tolerable rations. Sometimes luxuries appear of potted meats and hermetical vegetables, sent us by the fond New-Yorkers. Each little knot of fellows, too, cooks something savory. Our table-furniture is not elegant, our plates are tin, there is no silver in our forks; but à la guerre, comme à la guerre. Let the scrubs growl! Lucky fellows, if they suffer no worse hardships than this!
By and by, after breakfast, come company drills, bayonet practice, battalion drills, and the heavy work of the day. Our handsome Colonel, on a nice black nag, manœuvres his thousand men of the line-companies on the parade for two or three hours. Two thousand legs step off accurately together. Two thousand pipe-clayed cross-belts — whitened with infinite pains and waste of time, and offering a most inviting mark to a foe — restrain the beating bosoms of a thousand braves, as they — the braves, not the belts — go through the most intricate evolutions unerringly. Watching these battalion movements, Private W., perhaps, goes off and inscribes in his journal, — “Any clever, prompt
