litia had marched, and at no
period during the entire war did the military enthusiasm of the people
reach a greater height.

In the instruction of the troops, the manual of arms had to be
omitted, for there were no guns. Officers had been hastily selected,
and the commands in most cases given to experienced soldiers, whose
services were in sudden and great demand. The fidelity of the men was
accepted without any suggestion of the test of an oath. The companies
recruited rapidly, and were not long in filling up to the standard.
Their evolutions, which were conducted to a large extent in the open
square, under the cover of darkness, were at times edifying to
witness. As the battalions marched with sturdy tread up and down on
either side of the central market-houses, collisions would now and
then derange the symmetry of the forces. Frequent resort to unmilitary
language on the part of the commanders was necessary to bring up the
laggard platoons, and movements were habitually executed for which no
precedent could have been found in either Scott or Hardee. But it was
patriotism and not tactics that was uppermost in the minds of all, and
trifling imperfections of military discipline were, for the moment at
least, sunk out of sight in the sense of common danger.

Arms of all kinds were in urgent demand. Rifles and shot-guns, single
and double-barreled, old and new; pistols of all designs, long and
short, ancient and modern, together with some other unclassified
implements of war, were brought out from their hiding-places, hastily
cleaned and put in working order. Some of the men, when equipped for
the march, were walking armories of miscellaneous weapons. The
hardware stores were invaded in search of powder, shot, and ball. A
gum blanket, with which in most cases an army blanket, or in default
thereof, a pair of ordinary bed blankets, were rolled up; a haversack
of canvas or oil-cloth, hastily put together at the saddler's, a tin
cup, knife and fork and spoon, made up the rest of the equipment.

But it was the composition of the forces which lent to them their
chief dignity and formed their most notable feature. There was no
volunteering by proxy. No one at all able to contemplate military
service thought of stopping to suggest the duty of his neighbor. Each
felt the personal application of the call, and even to doubt one's
fitness for duty was to expose himself to suspicion. All claims of
business, public or private respo