with the chorus, "Poor old
buzzard, get away out of here," though, to be frank, the wording is
somewhat stronger. No buzzard will ever get anything out of our company
again when on the road, even though we may be at rest. Other little
touches show our memory of the captain's injunctions. We have a sergeant
who in former camps was demoralized by drilling under other officers, and
who at times crosses his gun upon his shoulders as he marches. Then the
whole column shouts at him till he takes it down. And when some other
company passes us, with men carrying the guns by the straps, we shout:
"Porter! Suit-case men! Red-caps!"

It is fine to march in a column of men and know the current of energy
that flows along it. However many miles you have marched, however tired
your feet and back and arms may be, in the knowledge that you are one of
a disciplined regiment there is something that strengthens you and keeps
you going. For in one sense Route Step, when you may go as you please, is
a fiction; we must still keep so close together that to preserve the step
and the cadence is almost a necessity, and though we carry our pieces at
ease, we still swing along together. And as you look along rising ground,
and see the hundreds of men ahead, and know there are as many more
behind, all going, going, the knowledge that you are a part of that
machine, and that to fall out would be to mar it and to cut yourself off
from it, keeps you still moving on your weary pins.

You see I am speaking of general things, because of particular events
today there is nothing to describe. The bathing today was most shockingly
public, on both sides of the bridge in this apology for a town. Whenever
wheels were heard, men shouted "Cover!" and those in the water (which was
very shallow) would try to get under. But I think the women folk had been
warned to keep away, since none of them crossed, at least while I was
there.

(_Evening._) Tonight we have had a talk from General Wood. I have not
reported our conferences to you, they are so incidental, and indeed so
theoretical at times. But we have had a captain from the border tell us
of the coming of the green militia there at the mobilizing of the
national guard, of their first helplessness under service conditions,
full as every company was of new men. The work of getting this half- or
quarter-trained mass ready for fighting was enormously more difficult
than our Plattsburg work; and the fact that these re