ad
just finished the last volume of the lexicon of slavery, that for so
long a time had defined away our manhood, our national honor, and our
birthright of freedom, with such terrible words as 'coercion,'
'secession,' 'fratricidal war,' 'sovereign States,' and what not; before
we had begun to look without fear even at the title page of the new
Gospel of Liberty: the days when we were mudsills and greasy mechanics,
whose pockets were to be touched: the days, in short, when we were still
inclined to crawl upon our bellies, from the preference arising out of
long and strong habit. Then, you remember, the rebellion was to be
crushed in sixty days. So the President issued his proclamation, of date
the 15th of April, A. D. 1861 (and of the independence of the United
States the _first_), calling out SEVENTY-FIVE THOUSAND men for ninety
days to do it.

On the same day we were mustered into the service as a part of this
gigantic force of seventy-five thousand, at the bare suggestion of whose
numbers the refractory South was confidently expected to abandon its
rash enterprise, and kindly resume its sway over us. Before the awful
ceremony known as 'mustering in,' we were sixty odd excited young
gentlemen, hailing from and residing in all parts of the country. After
it we were Company N, commanded by Captain John H. Pipes, of the First
Regiment of District of Columbia Volunteers, commanded by Colonel
Charles Diamond, as the muster rolls called us, or the 'American
Sharpshooters,' as we called ourselves.

Major McDuff mustered us in. He did it after this fashion: First he
walked out into the yard of the War Department, where the company stood
at 'parade rest,' or the nearest militia approach thereto, waiting to be
absorbed. Then he had us marched across the yard and halted; then up it;
then down it; then back to the first position; then forward in a line a
few paces; then, by the right flank, into the back yard, where he left,
us, at a 'rest,' for two hours and fifty-three minutes, while he retired
into the War Department building, probably to ascertain if the thing was
regular. Then, at the fifty-fourth minute, or thereabout, after the
second hour, he caused us to be marched into our original position.
After gazing at us uneasily for a few minutes, he proceeded to inspect
our arms with the utmost care: the importance of which manoeuvre will
more fully appear from the fact that they intended to take us, and did
take many of us, _s