Oliver Otis Howard, Autobiography of Oliver Otis Howard, major general , United States army : volume 1

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[48] only four nights; then the battalion was sent to the barracks. Still our squad drill continued once a day while the uniforms of the September cadets were in making. The corporal of one of our squads was Cadet Boggs, of Georgia. Ite was a capital drill master, severe enough, but always dignified and respectful to the boys under his charge; but the other corporal, Cadet Walker, never let an opportunity slip for an irritating speech to the squad and to individuals in it.

It was hard enough for a young man to put himself into what was called the military attitude, the little fingers on the seams of the trousers, palms to the front, head drawn back, and shoulders squared. I held myself in this position of apparent awkwardness till it became natural to be thus set up. I think the most difficult thing for each of us was to so walk as to strike the ball of the foot first. To point the toe and do this were required, and it gave a cadet a peculiar gait.

As soon as I received my uniform, my coat neatly fitting and keeping me in shape, with a clean white linen collar turned over the stiff binding, and trousers like my comrades, it was easier than before to escape expressions of amusement, and when we were divided into sections and sent to the class rooms I became daily more and more reconciled to the new life. In the recitation room I was more ready to compete with my companions.

At first the young men of my class when getting acquainted with each other were reasonably harmonious in their social life, but I very soon found that unpleasant feuds existed in the corps of cadets, and, as a rule, the subject of slavery was at the bottom of the controversy. I would not have owned at that time that I