Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Cheerful Yesterdays

“ [249] sense of novelty was nothing; it was as if one had learned to swim in air, and were striking out for some new planet.” All the methods, standards, habits, and aims of ordinary life were reversed, and the intrinsic and traditional charm of the soldier's life was mingled in my own case with the firm faith that the death-knell of slavery itself was being sounded. Meanwhile, the arts of drill and the discipline were to be learned in practice, and the former proved incomparably easier than had been expected; it turned out that there was no department of science in which the elements were so readily acquired. As to the exercise of authority, however, it was different. It was no longer possible to view a command only “in the light of a suggestion.” Moreover, we were dealing with a democratic society, on which a new temporary aristocracy of military rank was to be built, superseding all previous distinction; and the task was not light. Fortunately, I was older than many raw officers,--being thirty-eight, -and had some very young men in my company, who had been confided to me by their parents as to a father. Within my own immediate command I had hardly a trace of trouble; nor did I find the least difficulty in deferring to the general in command of the camp, who was by occupation a working mechanic, and