lick the whole Battalion. But what would they have? We were
obliged to fill up the ranks.

After a while it did come to be better understood, and was treated as a
joke, and some of the more sober men entered into the fun, and would go
out on parade, and take part in the ceremony. We paraded with a band
composed of men beating tin buckets, frying pans, and canteens, with
sticks, and whistling military music. It made a noisy and impressive
procession. It attracted much attention and furnished much amusement to
the camp.

=A Special Entertainment=

On proper occasions, promotions to higher rank were made for
distinguished merit in our line. An instance will illustrate. One night,
late, I was passing along when I saw this sight. The sentinel on guard
in camp was lying down on a pile of bags of corn at the forage
pile--sound asleep. He was lying on his left side. One of the long tails
of his coat was hanging loose from his body and dangling down alongside
the pile of bags. A half-grown cow had noiselessly sneaked up to the
forage pile, and been attracted by that piece of cloth hanging
loose--and, as calves will do, took the end of it into her mouth and
was chewing it with great satisfaction. I called several of the fellows,
and we watched the proceedings. The calf got more and more of the coat
tail into her mouth. At length, with her mouth full of the cloth, and
perhaps with the purpose of swallowing what she had been chewing she
gave a hard jerk. The cloth was old, the seams rotten--that jerk pulled
the whole of that tail loose from the body of the coat. The sleeping
guard never moved. We rescued the cloth from the calf, and hid it. When
the sleeper awoke, to his surprise, one whole tail of his coat was gone,
and he was left with only one of the long tails. Our watching group,
highly delighted at the show of a sentinel sleeping, while a calf was
browsing on him, told him what had happened and that the calf had
carried off the other coat tail. He was inconsolable. He was the only
private in the company who had a long-tailed coat and it was the pride
of his heart. There was no way of repairing the loss, and he had to go
around for days, sad and dejected, shorn of his glory--with only one
tail to his coat.

All this was represented to the "Battalion of Fusiliers." Charges were
preferred, and the Court Martial set. The witnesses testified to the
facts--also said that if we had not driven off the calf it would have
gone on