Fight at Chancellorsville; Reasons
thereof--Speech of the Dutch Doctor in Reply to a Peace-Offering from
the Chaplain--The Irish Corporal stumping for Freedom--Black Charlie's
Compliments to his Master--Western Virginia at the Head of a Black
Regiment, 313

RED-TAPE

AND

PIGEON-HOLE GENERALS.

CHAPTER I.

_The Advent of our General of Division--Camp near Frederick City,
Maryland--The Old Revolutionary Barracks at Frederick--An Irish
Corporal's Recollections of the First Regiment of Volunteers from
Pennsylvania--Punishment in the Old First._

"Our new Division-General, boys!" exclaimed a sergeant of the 210th
Pennsylvania Volunteers, whose attention and head were turned at the
clatter of horses' hoofs to the rear. "I heard an officer say that he
would be along to-day, and I recognise his description."

The men, although weary and route-worn, straightened up, dressed their
ranks, and as the General and Staff rode past, some enthusiastic soldier
proposed cheers for our new Commander. They started with a will, but the
General's doubtful look, as interpreted by the men, gave little or no
encouragement, and the effort ended in a few ragged discordant yells.

"He is a strange-looking old covey any how," said one of the boys in an
undertone. "Did you notice that red muffler about his neck, and how
pinched up and crooked his hat is, and that odd-looking moustache, and
how savagely he cocks his eyes through his spectacles?"

"They say," replied the sergeant, "that we are the first troops that he
has commanded. He was a staff officer before in the Topographical Corps.
Didn't you notice the T.C. on his coat buttons?"

"And is he going to practise upon us?" blurts out a bustling red-faced
little Irish corporal. "Be Jabers, that accounts for the crooked cow
road we have marched through the last day--miles out of the way, and
niver a chance for coffee."

"You are too fast, Terence," said the sergeant; "if he belongs to the
Topographical Corps, he ought at least to know the roads."

"And didn't you say not two hours ago that we were entirely out of the
way, and that we had been wandering as crooked as the creek that flows
back of the old town we are from, and nearly runs through itself in a
dozen places?"

The sergeant admitted that he had said so, but stated that perhaps the
General was not to blame, and added somewhat jocosely: "At any rate the
wi