The Photographic History of The Civil War: in ten volumes, Thousands of Scenes Photographed 1861-65, with Text by many Special Authorities, Volume 8: Soldier Life and Secret Service.
Francis Trevelyan Miller, Ed.

And then the shoes with which the Federals reached the front! Not one pair out of four would have borne the test of a ten-mile tramp, not one out of ten would have stood the strain of a ten-days' march, and those that first took their places, the make of contractors, were even worse. Not until the ‘Iron Secretary,’ Stanton, got fairly into swing did contractors begin to learn that there was a man to dread in the Department of War, but Stanton had not even been suggested in the fall of 1861. Simon Cameron, the venerable Pennsylvania politician, was still in office. McClellan, the young, commanding general was riding diligently from one review to another, a martial sight, accompanied by his staff, orderlies, and escort.

The weather was perfect along the Potomac that gorgeous early autumn of 1861. The beautiful wooded heights were crowned with camps; the plains and fields were white with snowy tentage; the dust hung lazily over countless drillgrounds and winding roadways; the bands were out in force on every afternoon, filling the soft, sunshiny air with martial melody; the camps were thronged with smile-wreathed visitors, men and women from distant homes; the streets of Washington were crowded, and its famous old caravanseries prospered, as never before, for never had the Nation mustered in such overwhelming strength as here about the sleepy old Southern ‘city of magnificent distances’—a tawdry, shabby town in all conscience, yet a priceless something to be held against the world in arms, for the sacred flag that floated over the columned White House, for the revered and honored name it bore.

In seven strong divisions, with three or four brigades in each, ‘Little Mac,’ as the volunteers rejoiced to call him, had organized his great army as the autumn waned, and the livelong days were spent in the constant drill, drill that was absolutely needed to impart cohesion and discipline to this vast