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[134] our left beyond Rappahannock Ford, the cavalry being busily employed upon the flanks of our long line, and also in watching our extended line of communication. We tarried here during the remainder of the summer, and into September. The continuance of the army in camp for so many weeks since its arrival in the regions of Fauquier and Culpepper Counties emboldened sutlers to venture to move out to the camps considerable stores, and daguerrotypists to come hither to ply their craft. Many a soldier had an opportunity to dispose of his hard-earned paper to the former and to procure a counterfeit of himself of the latter. Tintypes exhibiting full length portraits of the boys were common articles of transmission through the mails, in those days.

It was while at this place that a proposition was submitted to the boys to contribute ten cents each toward a testimonial to Gen. McClellan. When the scheme was explained to the noncommissioned officers and privates they were informed that it had the approval of Gen. Meade, and that all general officers would participate in the contribution; that colonels and subordinate field officers would give something less, and that line officers would generally contribute $1.50 each. The object of this enterprise was understood to be a vindication of Gen. McClellan. Whether it implied a criticism of the war department was not much considered. We think the true friends of Gen. McClellan, among whom the writer of this chapter counts himself, doubted the propriety of such a plan, judged from the standpoint of healthy military discipline. The scheme was nipped in the bud by the department, as it ought to have been.

...

Back of the surgeon's tent a crowd was gathered. A comrade sat upon a cracker box. Along comes the steward with a pair of rusty forceps; he takes the soldier's head in his left hand, examines his mouth and applies the pincers to a bicuspid. The boys are intently watching the face of the patient. The tooth is firmly fixed in the lower jaw. The steward makes considerable effort before it is loosened, causing intense pain, but at length displays the tooth in the grip of the forceps, to the crowd. ‘He never flinched,’ said the boys, admiringly.

On another day, we were passing a hospital tent, and were drawn to the door by hearing dreadful imprecations within, which

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