THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
Gap to Sperryville, and it was noticed by officers and men that the march of my command was conducted with more order and comfort than they had been accustomed to. At Sperryville, as soon as the troops were sufficiently rested, I began a series of division drills under my personal command, including the formation of my two brigades in column, deployment for action, formation for attack, changes of front, and similar evolutions. One of these drills was watched by General Sigel, who accidentally came by. He was unusually profuse in commendation, and remarked that he wished such things were more frequently done in the army. I was even more pleased by a visit from Colonel Alexander von Schimmelfennig, commanding the Seventy-fourth regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers, in my first brigade—the same Prussian officer Schimmelfennig who, thirteen years before, had served in the revolutionary army of the Palatinate, and who, in the winter of 1849-50, at Zurich, in Switzerland, had given me military instruction. Now he was my subordinate. “Your division drill was very good,” said he; “very good; where did you learn these things?” “First from you!” I replied, “and then from the books you recommended to me to study, at Zurich, you remember.” “Very good,” he repeated, evidently pleased. “You have studied well; now let us do as well when the bullets whistle.”
I felt with great satisfaction that I had much advanced in the respect and confidence of my officers and men. But the severest and most essential trial was still to come; and it came before many days. On the 8th of August we received marching orders. Although the subordinate commanders knew little of the ulterior purposes of our movements, the general situation of affairs was understood to have become critical. McClellan's great Peninsular campaign dragged discouragingly on. The Army of the Potomac no longer threatened
[ 351 ]
