He enjoyed the grand reviews, noting with his quick eye the
difference, in the great host, between the volunteers and the
regulars. Of the type of that noble band of officers and men, none the
less patriotic because more thoroughly educated in drills than the
volunteers, he wrote: "His steps are regulated,--his motions, his
manners,--he is a _regular_ in all these. The volunteer stoops beneath
the load on his back. He is far more like Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's
Progress,' with his burden of sin, than the regular. His steps are
uneven, his legs are more unsteady. He carries his gun at a different
angle. He lacks the finish which is obtained only by hard drill, and
exact discipline." He closed this letter with a tribute of praise to
Tidball's superb battery of artillery.

At this time the cavalry were not in good repute, General Scott not
being in favor of any horsemen, except for scouting purposes. In this
arm of the service the Confederates were far ahead of the Union
soldiers. Grant, Sheridan, and Ronald McKenzie had not yet transformed
our Northern horsemen into whirlwinds of fire. After various other
experiences, including a long ride through Western Maryland, Carleton,
within a few days before Christmas, was called by his employers to
leave the Army of the Potomac, to go west to the prospective
battle-field, where the heavy blows were soon to be struck. He was
succeeded in Washington by Mr. Benjamin Perley Poore. A few noble
words of farewell in his 109th letter, dated Washington, December 21,
1861, closed Carleton's first campaign in the East, his acquaintance
with the Army of the Potomac having begun on the 12th of June. Having
won the hearts of the soldiers in camp, and their friends at home, he
left for "the next great battle-field" in the West, where, as he said,
"history will soon be written in blood." He would see how the navy, as
well as the army, was to bring peace by its men of valor, and its
heavy guns,--"preachers against treason." His experience was to be of
war on the waters, as well as on land.

CHAPTER IX.

"HO, FOR THE GUNBOATS, HO!"

His first letter from the Army of the West, he dated, Cincinnati,
December 28, 1861. Instead of a comparatively circumscribed Utica (on
the Potomac), to confine his powers, our modern Ulysses had a line a
thousand miles long, and a territory larger than several New Englands
to look over. His first work, therefore, was to invite his readers to
a panorama of Kent