nce between them and the new.

The great lack of supplies necessary to the comfort of troops, required
to do constant and severe duty in such weather, told injuriously upon
the discipline of the command. It was impossible to obtain clothing,
shoes, etc., in quantities at all adequate to the demand and the
greatest efforts of energy and enterprise upon the part of the subaltern
officers, never make up for the deficiency in the regular supply of
these articles from the proper sources.

Pay was something the men scarcely expected, and it benefited them very
little when they received it. If the Confederate Government could have
made some provision, by which its soldiers would have been regularly
paid, the men would have been far better satisfied, for there is
something gratifying to human nature in the receipt of money even when
it is smartly depreciated. Certainly, if comfortable clothing and good
serviceable boots and shoes had been issued, as they were needed, and
the rations had been occasionally improved by the issue of coffee, or
something which would have been esteemed a delicacy, the discipline and
efficiency of all the troops would have been vastly promoted. It is hard
to maintain discipline, when men are required to perform the most
arduous and harassing duties without being clothed, shod, paid or fed.
If they work and fight they will have little time to provide for
themselves. But they certainly will not starve, and they object,
decidedly, to doing without clothing if by any means and exertions they
can obtain it. Then the converse of the proposition becomes equally
true, and if they provide for themselves, they will have little time to
work and fight. With cavalry, for instance, the trouble of keeping men
in camp who were hungry and half frozen, and who felt that they had done
good service, was very great. The infantryman, even if equally
destitute, could not well straggle, but the cavalry soldier had his
horse to take him, although the distance was great and the road was
rough.

When men once commenced running about, they became incorrigible in the
habit. Hunger might draw them out at first, but whisky would then become
an allurement, and a multitude of seductive inducements would cause them
to persist in the practice. In nine cases out of ten, when a man became
an inveterate straggler, he was no loss if he were shot. These seem
truisms, too palpable to need mention, but for three years they were
dinned into