huts should have no floors. No, he had not, but his staff position
as engineer gave him sufficient control of the subject. I said I
would examine the matter and submit it to General McClellan, and
meanwhile the floors already built might remain, though no new ones
should be made till the question was decided. I reported to the
general that, in my judgment, the huts should have floors and bunks,
because the ground was wet when they were built,--they could not be
struck like tents to dry and air the earth, and they were meant to
be permanent quarters for the rendezvous of troops for an indefinite
time. The decision of McClellan was in accordance with the report.
Rosecrans acquiesced, and indeed seemed rather to like me the better
on finding that I was not carried away by the assumption of
indefinite power by a staff officer.

This little flurry over, the quarters were soon got in as
comfortable shape as rough lumber could make them, and the work of
drill and instruction was systematized. The men were not yet armed,
so there was no temptation to begin too soon with the manual of the
musket, and they were kept industriously employed in marching in
single line, by file, in changing direction, in forming columns of
fours from double line, etc., before their guns were put in their
hands. Each regiment was treated as a separate camp, with its own
chain of sentinels, and the officers of the guard were constantly
busy teaching guard and picket duty theoretically to the reliefs off
duty, and inspecting the sentinels on post. Schools were established
in each regiment for field and staff and for the company officers,
and Hardee's Tactics was in the hands of everybody who could procure
a copy. It was one of our great inconveniences that the supply of
the authorized Tactics was soon exhausted, and it was difficult to
get the means of instruction in the company schools. An abridgment
was made and published in a very few days by Thomas Worthington, a
graduate of West Point in one of the earliest classes,--of 1827, I
think,--a son of one of the first governors of Ohio. This eccentric
officer had served in the regular army and in the Mexican War, and
was full of ideas, but was of so irascible and impetuous a temper
that he was always in collision with the powers that be, and spoiled
his own usefulness. He was employed to furnish water to the camp by
contract, and whilst he ruined himself in his efforts to do it well,
he was in perpetual