XVIII. breaking camp.--on the march.
And now comes “ boots and saddles! ” Oh! there's hurrying to and fro,And saddling up in busy haste — for what, we do not know.
Sometimes 'twas but a false alarm, sometimes it meant a fight;
Sometimes it came in daytime, and sometimes it came at night.
The subject of this chapter is a very suggestive one to the old soldier. It covers a whole realm of experience which it would be nearly impossible to exhaust. But there is much in this as in other experiences which was common to all longterm veterans, and to this common experience more especially I shall address my attention. From the descriptions which I have already given of the various kinds of shelter used by the soldiers it will be readily understood that they got the most comfortably settled in their winter-quarters, and that in a small way each hut became a miniature homestead, and for the time being possessed, to a certain extent, all the attractions of home. The bunk, the stools, and other furniture, the army bric-a-brac, whether captured or of home production, which adorned the rough tenement within and without, all came to have a value by association in the soldier's thought, a value which was not fully computed till campaigning impended — that usually direful day, when marching orders came and the boys folded their tents and marched away. This sketch
