George H. Gordon, From Brook Farm to Cedar Mountain

“ [60] than losses by defeat.” Another defeat at Manassas might involve fatal results; so McClellan's policy was one of extreme caution. In the mean time fleets were being prepared to descend upon the Southern sea-coast, and keep some of the Southern soldiers farther south than in Virginia. And still we waited, and the still cold weather came on apace, to make us shiver oa nights, and swallow a great deal of smoke over wood-fires in front of our tents. Some of our officers grumbled because for many days they had not seen a looking-glass. It was drill, drill, drill; some reading of military books, a great deal of reading of the newspapers, a great deal of imagination, and a vast deal of hope.

There was much speculation in our camps. Would the enemy cross the river? Was this delay, that McClellan might strengthen his position, raise the depressed spirits of our men, and add real solidity to our army? “See,” said some, “what made the disaster of Bull Run possible,--soldiers without drill, their time of enlistment expiring; soldiers who did not enlist to fight, but to brag; men without discipline, not caring a rush for their officers. Their blood was not aroused, for they did not believe us to be really at war with a merciless and resolved rebel force; so they walked on tiptoe where should have been a ringing tramp. Against such a condition of things,” it was urged, “McClellan will provide; he is fortifying himself at Washington, on the west at Alexandria, and on the north, within eighteen miles of us, at Tennallytown; he will not leave Washington defenceless.”

On the nineteenth of October five of our friends from Boston dined with us at the headquarters' mess-table,--Messrs. Sidney Bartlett, William Amory and son, Jefferson Coolidge, and F. D'Hauteville. The dinner we gave them is, I am told, still fragrant in their memory. If I had informed