tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">XV.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

After the lapse of more than forty years, I hardly hoped to be able to publish pictures of all our officers, and have been more than pleased to secure so many. The others, I regret to say, could not be obtained. The youthful appearance of these officers will be remarked. All, I believe, with the exception of Colonel Oakford were below thirty years, and most between twenty and twenty-five.

• Colonel Frederick L. Hitchcock—Frontispiece
• The Monument—Facing title-page
• Groups of Captains
• Group, Chaplain and Surgeons
• Colonel Charles Albright
• Colonel Vincent M. Wilcox
• Colonel Richard A. Oakford
• The Silenced Confederate Battery
• The Sunken Road
• Field Hospital
• Groups of Lieutenants
• Major Frederick L. Hitchcock
• Don and I, and glimpse of Camp of Hancock's Division, Falmouth, Va.
• Reunion 132d Regiment, P. V., 1891, on Battle-field of Antietam.

WAR FROM THE INSIDE

CHAPTER I

FIRST LESSONS; OR, DOING THE IMPOSSIBLE

I was appointed adjutant of the One Hundred and Thirty-second Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers, by our great war Governor, Andrew G. Curtin, at the solicitation of Colonel Richard A. Oakford, commanding the regiment, my commission dating the 22d day of August, 1862. I reported for duty to Colonel Oakford at Camp Whipple, where the regiment was then encamped, on the 3d day of September, 1862. This was immediately following the disasters of "Chantilly" and "Second Bull Run," and as I passed through Washington to Camp Whipple, I found the greatest excitement prevailing because of these reverses, and a general apprehension for the safety of the capital in consequence. The wildest rumors were abroad concerning the approach of the victorious rebel troops, and an alarm amounting almost to a panic existed. Being without a horse or other means of transportation, I was obliged to make my way, valise in hand, on foot from Washington over the "long bridge" across the Potomac, to Camp Whipple, some two miles up the river nearly opposite Georgetown. From the wild rumors floating about Washington, I did not know but I should be captured bag and baggage before reaching camp. Undertaking this trip under those circumstances, I think, required almost as much nerve as "real work" did later on.

Getting beyond the long bridge there were abundant evidences of the reported disasters. Straggling troops, army wagons, etc., were pouring in from the "front" in great disorder. I reached camp about three o'clock P.M. and found Colonel Oakford out with the regiment on battalion drill. An hour later I reported to his office (tent) as ready for duty. The colonel had been a lifelong personal friend, and I was received, as I expected, most cordially. I was assigned quarters, and a copy of the daily routine orders of camp was placed in my hands, and my attention specially called to the fact that the next "order of business" was "dress parade" at six o'clock. I inquired the cause of this special notice to me, and was informed that I was expected to officiate as adjutant of the regiment at that ceremony. I pleaded with the colonel to be allowed a day or so in camp to see how things were done before undertaking such difficult and important duties; that I knew absolutely nothing about any part of military service; had never served a day in any kind of military work, except in a country fire company; had never seen a dress parade of a full regiment in my life, and knew nothing whatever about the duties of an adjutant.

My pleadings were all in vain. The only reply I received was a copy of the "Army Regulations," with the remark that I had two hours in which to study up and master the details of dress parade, and that I could not learn my duties any easier nor better than by actual practice; that my condition was no different from that of my fellow officers; that we were all there in a camp of instruction learning our duties, and there was not a moment to lose. I then began to realize something of the magnitude of the task which lay before me. To do difficult things, without knowing how; that is, to learn how in the doing, was the universal task of the Union volunteer officer. I took up my "Army Regulations" and attacked the ceremony of dress parade as a life and death matter. Before my two hours were ended, I could repeat every sentence of the ceremony verbatim, and felt that I had mastered the thing, and was not going to my execution in undertaking my duties as adjutant. Alas for the frailty of memory; it failed me at the crucial moment, and I made a miserable spectacle of myself before a thousand officers and men, many of them old friends and acquaintances, all of whom, it seemed to me, were specially assembled on that occasion to witness my début,