f this violation of the act, must be apparent to any one upon a
moment's reflection. Officers, whose only offence may be their belonging
to the Volunteer Service, are too frequently subjected to the tender
mercy of a Board of Martinets;--men of long service and tried ability,
degraded by the fiat of a court composed of officers as tender in
intellect as in years, and whose only recommendation to be members of
the court, is their recent transfer from lessons in gunnery and
drills;--with patent leather knapsacks, to field or higher positions in
the Volunteer Service. Thus, the officer whose earnestness in the cause
and heavy sacrifice of family ties and business affairs, first raised
the command,--who grew with its growth during months, perhaps years, of
hard service,--saw through his untiring efforts the awkwardness of his
men change gradually for the precision of the veteran,--not unfrequently
by the snap judgment of men whose only service has been in Pay,
Quarter-Master, Commissary Departments,--anywhere but in a Fighting
Department,--finds himself dishonored, his service thrown aside for
naught, and his worst enemy the misuse of the laws he had taken arms to
vindicate.

Not an officer or soldier but must recollect a case in point. Now, this
mainly arises from the undue and unjust deference paid by the War
Department to Regular Officers, and the curse that attends them and
upholds them--Red Tape. _Undue and unjust deference._ Does not the
history of the Army of the Potomac prove it? Its heroic fighting, but
ill-starred generalship!

* * * * *

"Halloo, Bill! what news from the Sibley?" shouted one of a group of
officers who sat and lay upon the ground, cheerfully discussing hard
tack and coffee in the camp of a grand picket reserve, near the
Rappahannock. The man addressed would, in build, have made a good
recruit for the armies of New Amsterdam in their warfare against the
Swedes, so graphically described by Irving. Short and thickly set, with
a face radiant as a brass kettle in a preserving season, trousers thrust
in a pair of cast-away top boots, the legs of which fell in ungainly
folds about his ankles, a greasy blouse, tucked in at the waist-band,
and a cap ripped behind in the vain effort to accommodate it to a head
of Websterian dimensions. With all his shortcomings, and they were
legion, Bill's education, unfailing humor and kindness of heart made him
a favorite at regimental H