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[15]
With a reprimand the officer passed on and soon came to the mail carrier, who had not been as sharp as the wagoner and had not watched the others.
As the Lieutenant Colonel stood before him, he remained quiet and modestly blushed.
The Lieutenant Colonel surveyed him from head to foot.
‘Why don't you bring up your musket?’
The wagoner took it in his right hand and pushed it toward him.
‘Don't you know any better than that?’
‘No,’ exclaimed the embarrassed man, ‘I wish I hadn't come out here.
I was sure I'd get into trouble if I did.’
The officer smiled and passed on, but, after that, extra duty men were excused from Sunday inspection.
As the days passed rapidly by, the men of the regiment put on more and more the look and air of soldiers; daily they drilled and worked and worked and drilled; daily they cursed more and more the grim figure at headquarters, who was the genius of all this unaccustomed toil.
Of the future worth of all this drill, fatigue and labor, many had small idea and few had none whatever.
When encamped at Meridian Hill, the Seventh Michigan Regiment arrived and camped on the opposite side of the street.
Close friendships immediately sprang up between the men of the Nineteenth and those of the Seventh, which lasted during the entire service of the regiments.
The Michigan men were forced to do guard duty with sticks until fitted out by the general government, as they brought no muskets with them.
The Nineteenth Regiment was assigned to the brigade of Gen. Frederick W. Lander and ordered to march to Poolesville, Md., then the headquarters of that division, known as the ‘Corps of Observation,’ Gen. Charles P. Stone, commanding.
The march was from Washington through Leesboro, Rockville and Darnestown.
It was the first march made by the men and to the ‘tender-feet’ a very hard one.
It developed the interesting fact, however, that the boys who were fresh from school or indoor life, could endure more than the men of mature years who had at first laughed at them.
On the first night of the march the men camped by the
Salem Press. Co., Salem, Ma., 1906.
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