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increased by additions from neighboring camp-fires, until tired Nature began to assert herself, when one by one the company would withdraw, each going to his hut for two or three hours rest, if possible, to partially prepare him for the toils of the morrow.
Ah! is not that an all-wise provision of Providence which keeps the future a sealed book, placing it before us leaf by leaf only, as the present?
For some of these very men, it may have been, whose voices rang out so merrily at that camp-fire, would lie cold and pale ere the week should close, in the solemn stillness of death.
But morning dawned all too soon for those who gave up most of the night to hilarity, and all were summoned forth at the call of the bugle or the drum, and at a time agreed upon The General was sounded.
the General.
Presto.
The above is the General of infantry.
That of the artillery was less often used and entirely different.
At this signal, every tent in a regiment was struck.
It was quite an interesting sight to see several acres of canvas disappear in a moment, where before it had been the prominent feature in the landscape.
As a fact, I believe the General was little used in the latter part of the war. For about two years, when the troops were sheltered by the Sibley, Wedge, and Wall tents, it was necessary to have them struck at an early hour, in order that they might be packed away in the wagon-train.
But after the Shelter tent
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