ther, for "not carrying musket properly in
ranks." Who can ever forget that last parade, when the entire
class, officers and privates together, marched up in line and made
their salute to the gallant commandant! To a West-Pointer no other
emotion equals it, except that of victory in battle.

CHAPTER II
On Graduating Leave--Brevet Second Lieutenant in the 2d Artillery
at Fort Moultrie--An Officer's Credit Before the War--Second
Lieutenant in the 1st Artillery--Journey to Fort Capron, Florida--
A Reservation as to Whisky--A Trip to Charleston and a Troublesome
Money-Bag--An "Affair of Honor"--A Few Law-books--An Extemporized
"Map and Itinerary"--Yellow Fever--At A. P. Hill's Home in Virginia
--Assigned to Duty in the Department of Philosophy at West Point--
Interest in Astronomy--Marriage--A Hint from Jefferson Davis--Leave
of Absence--Professor of Physics in Washington University.

An old army colonel many years ago described a West Point graduate,
when he first reported for duty after graduating leave, as a very
young officer with a full supply of self-esteem, a four-story
leather trunk filled with good clothes, and an empty pocket. To
that must be added, in my case, a debt equal to the full value of
trunk and clothes and a hundred dollars borrowed money. My "equipment
fund" and much more had been expended in Washington and in journeys
to and fro during the period of administrative uncertainty in
respect to the demands of discipline at West Point. Still I had
so good a time, that graduating leave, as any millionaire in the
United States. My good father was evidently disturbed, and began
to fear--for the first time, I think--that I was really going to
the bad! His worst fears as to the possible effects of a military
education had, after all, been realized! When I showed him the
first check from New York, covering my pay account for July, he
said that it was enough to ruin any boy in the world. Indeed, I
myself was conscious of the fact that I had not done a stroke of
work all that month for those sixty-five and a half dollars; and
in order that my father might be convinced of my determination not
to let such unearned wealth lead me into dissipation, I at once
offered to lend him fifty dollars to pay a debt due to somebody on
the Freeport Baptist meeting-house. Confidence was thereby
restored.

BREVET SECOND LIEUTENANT

My first orders assigned me to dut