It needs an artist's eye to make a perfect drill-master. Yet the small
points are not merely a matter of punctilio; for, the more perfectly a
battalion is drilled on the parade-ground, the more quietly it can be
handled in action. Moreover, the great need of uniformity is this: that,
in the field, soldiers of different companies, and even of different
regiments, are liable to be intermingled, and a diversity of orders may
throw everything into confusion. Confusion means Bull Run.

I wished my men at the review to-day; for, amidst all the rattling and
noise of artillery and the galloping of cavalry, there was only one
infantry movement that we have not practised, and that was done by only
one regiment, and apparently considered quite a novelty, though it is
easily taught,--forming square by Casey's method: forward on centre.

It is really just as easy to drill a regiment as a company,--perhaps
easier, because one has more time to think; but it is just as essential
to be sharp and decisive, perfectly clear-headed, and to put life into
the men. A regiment seems small when one has learned how to handle it,
a mere handful of men; and I have no doubt that a brigade or a
division would soon appear equally small. But to handle either
_judiciously_,--ah, that is another affair!

So of governing: it is as easy to govern a regiment as a school or a
factory, and needs like qualities,--system, promptness, patience, tact;
moreover, in a regiment one has the aid of the admirable machinery of
the army, so that I see very ordinary men who succeed very tolerably.

Reports of a six months' armistice are rife here, and the thought is
deplored by all. I cannot believe it, yet sometimes one feels very
anxious about the ultimate fate of these poor people. After the
experience of Hungary, one sees that revolutions may go backward; and
the habit of injustice seems so deeply impressed upon the whites, that
it is hard to believe in the possibility of anything better. I dare not
yet hope that the promise of the President's Proclamation will be kept.
For myself I can be indifferent, for the experience here has been its
own daily and hourly reward; and the adaptedness of the freed slaves for
drill and discipline is now thoroughly demonstrated and must soon be
universally acknowledged. But it would be terrible to see this regiment
disbanded or defrauded.

_January 12._--Many things glide by without time to narrate them. On
Saturday we had a ma