The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863, page 19 by Various Authors
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the crowd, and quite overshadowed by the stars of the brigadiers. Even these latter did not look quite so portentous and dazzling when we saw them in whole constellations, paling their ineffectual rays before the luminary of headquarters. Many an ambitious youth, who had come from home with very grand though vague ideas of the personal influence he was to have upon the country's destinies, found it a wholesome exercise to stand in the mud at the gate all day as officer of the guard, and touch his hat obsequiously to the general staff. If there was good stuff in him he soon got over the first disappointment, and learned to put his shoulder more heartily to that of his men, when he found that his time was by no means too valuable to be chiefly spent in very insignificant employments. Some few, it is true, never could have done this, even if they had been brayed in a mortar. I remember one fussy little cavalry adjutant, who never allowed a private to pass him without a salute, or sit down in his presence. I lost sight of the fellow soon afterward, but it was with great satisfaction that I saw his name gazetted a week or two since, 'dismissed the service.'
As for regular instruction in tactics, there was perhaps as much as the nature of the case admitted, to wit, none at all. Every now and then a fine system would be organized, and promulgated in general orders. Sometimes a series of recitations were prescribed that would have dismayed a teachers' institute. Field officers were to say their lessons every evening at headquarters, and head classes from their own line in the forenoon. The company officers in turn were to teach non-commissioned ideas how to shoot. Playing truant was strictly forbidden; careless officers who should 'fail to acquire the lesson set for them' were to be reported, and, I presume, the unlucky man who missed a question would have seen 'the next' go above him till the bright boy of each class had worked his way up to the head. These systems did not prove a failure: they simply ne