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was then marched to its quarters.
As we returned, there was a nig brigade, having its dress parade in fine style.
They looked extremely well and marched in good style.
The band was a great feature.
There was a man with the bass drum (the same I believe that so amused De Chanal) who felt a ruat-coelum-fiat-big-drum sentiment in his deepest heart!
No man ever felt more that the success of great things lay in the whacking of that sheepskin with vigor and precision!
Te-de-bung, de-de-bung, bung, bung! could be heard, far and near. . . . The nigs are getting quite brisk at their evolutions.
If their intellects don't work, the officers occasionally refresh them by applying the flats of their swords to their skins.
There was a Swede here, who had passed General Casey's board for a negro commission.
He was greatly enraged by a remark of the distinguished Casey, who asked him what Gustavus Adolphus did, meaning what great improvements he introduced in the art of war. To which the furriner replied: “He was commander-in-chief of the Swedish army.”
“Oh, pooh!”
said Casey, “that's nothing!”
Which the Swede interpreted to mean that Gustavus was small potatoes, or that the Swedish army was so. Really, most foreign officers among us are but scapegraces from abroad.
The other day the Belgian Minister Sanford sent a letter asking for promotion for private Guatineau, whose pa had rendered us great service by writing in the French press.
The matter being referred to his commander, the reply was: “This man deserted to the enemy from the picket line.”
November 11, 1864
The McClellan procession might have spared their tapers, as he has gone up, poor Mac, a victim to his friends!
His has been a career manque, and a hard time he has had,