John D. Billings, Hardtack and Coffee: The Unwritten Story of Army Life

[209] had occasion to wish that the regulation thirteen inches from breast to back might be extended to as many feet; but when the march was backward in line, these front rank men would get square with their persecutors in the rear.

To see such men attempt to change step while marching was no mean show. I can think of nothing more apt to compare it with than the game of Hop Scotch, in which the player hops first on one foot, then on both; or to the blue jay, which, in uttering one of its notes, jumps up and down on the limb; and if such a squad under full headway were surprised with a sudden command to halt, they went all to pieces. It was no easy task to align them, for each man had a line of his own, and they would crane their heads out to see the buttons on the breast of the second man, to such an extent that the sergeant might have exclaimed, with the Irish sergeant under like circumstances, “O be-gorra, what a bint row! Come out here, lads, and take a look at yoursels!”

The awkward squad excelled equally in the infantry manual-of-arms. Indeed, they displayed more real individuality here, I think, than in the marchings, probably because it was the more noticeable. At a “shoulder” their muskets pointed at all angles, from forty-five degrees to a vertical. In the attempt to change to a “carry,” a part of them would drop their muskets. At an “order,” no two of the butts reached the ground together, and if a man could not always drop his musket on his own toe he was a pretty correct shot with it on the toe of his neighbor. But, with all their awkwardness and slowness at becoming acquainted with a soldier's duties, the recruits of the earlier years in time of need behaved manfully. They made a poor exhibition on dress parade, but could generally be counted on when more serious work was in hand. Sometimes, when they made an unusually poor display on drill or parade, they were punished-unjustly it may have been, for what