n in
the bath. My last one had been in a wine-vat a full week before, and I was
ready to risk anything for the luxury of a good soak.

Orders to march usually reached us at midnight--why, I do not know; but we
would turn in with the belief that we would not move on the following
day, and the next we knew an orderly from regimental headquarters would
wake us with marching instructions, and in no happy frame of mind we would
grumblingly tumble out to issue the necessary commands. Coblenz proved no
exception to this rule. As we got under way, a fine rain was falling that
was not long in permeating everything. Through the misty dripping town the
"caissons went rolling along," and out across the Pfaffendorf bridge, with
the dim outlines of the fortress of Ehrenbreitstein towering above us. The
men were drowsy and cold. I heard a few disparaging comments on the size
of the Rhine. They had heard so much talk about it that they had expected
to find it at least as large as the Mississippi. We found the slippery
stones of the street ascending from the river most difficult to negotiate,
but at length everything was safely up, and we struck off toward the
bridge-head position which we were to occupy for we knew not how long. The
Huns had torn down the sign-posts at the crossroads; with what intent I
cannot imagine, for the roads were not complicated and were clearly
indicated on the maps, and the only purpose that the sign-posts could
serve was to satisfy a curiosity too idle to cause us to calculate by map
how far we had come or what distance lay still before us. A number of
great stone slabs attracted our attention; they had been put up toward the
close of the eighteenth century and indicated the distance in hours. I
remember one that proclaimed it was three hours to Coblenz and eighteen to
Frankfort. I have never seen elsewhere these records of an age when time
did not mean money.

The march was in the nature of an anticlimax, for we had thought always of
Coblenz as our goal, and the good fortune in which we had played as
regarded weather during our march down the valley of the Moselle had made
us supercritical concerning such details as a long, wearisome slogging
through the mud in clumsy, water-logged clothes. At length we reached the
little village of Niederelbert and found that Lieutenant Brown, whose turn
it was as billeting officer, had settled us so satisfactorily that in a
short time we were all comfortably steaming befo