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[334] most common plan, as the same weight could be borne with less fatigue in that manner than in a knapsack, slung on the back.

I have assumed it to be evening or late afternoon when marching orders arrived, and have thus far related what the average soldier was wont to do immediately afterwards. There was a night ahead and the soldiers were wont to “make a night of it.” As a rule, there was little sleep to be had, the enforcement of the usual rules of camp being relaxed on such an occasion. Aside from the labor of personal packing and destroying, the rations were to be distributed, and each company had to fall into line, march to the cook-house, and receive their three or more days' allowance of hardtack, pork, coffee, and sugar, all of which they must stow away, as compactly as possible, in the haversack or elsewhere if they wanted them. In the artillery, besides securing the rations, sacks of grain — usually oats — must be taken from the grainpile and strapped on to the ammunition-chests for the horses; the axles must be greased, good spare horses selected to supply the vacancies in any teams where the horses were unfit for duty; the tents of regimental headquarters must be struck, likewise the cook-tents, and these, with officers' baggage, must be put into the wagons which are to join the trains;--in brief, everything must be prepared for the march of the morrow.

After this routine of preparation was completed, camp-fires were lighted, and about them would gather the happy-go-lucky boys of the rank and file, whose merry din would speedily stir the blood of the men who had hoped for a few hours' sleep before starting out on the morrow, to come out of their huts and join the jovial round; and soon they were as happy as the happiest, even if more reticent. As the fire died down and the soldiers drew closer about it, some comrade would go to his hut, and, with an armful of its furniture, the stools, closets, and tables I have spoken of, reillumine and enliven the scene and drive back the circle of bystanders again.

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