Theodore Winthrop

“ It is monotonous, it is not monotonous, it is laborious, it is lazy, it is a bore, it is a lark, it is half war, half peace, and totally attractive, and not to be dispensed with from one’s experience in the nineteenth century. ”

“ There are several boyish voices which reply, several comic voices, a few mean voices, and some so earnest and manly and alert that one says to himself, “Those are the men for me, when work is to be done!” ”

“ In the middle hours of the day, it is in order to get a pass to go to Washington, or to visit some of the camps, which now, in the middle of May, begin to form a cordon around the city. Some of these I may criticise before the end of this paper. Our capital seems arranged by nature to be protected by fortified camps on the circuit of its hills. ”

“ Wondrous gymnasts are some of the Seventh, and after evening parade they often give exhibitions of their prowess to circles of admirers. Muscle has not gone out, nor nerve, nor activity, if these athletes are to be taken as the types or even as the leaders of the young city-bred men of our time. ”

“ It is pure pedantry to claim that the manœuvring of troops is difficult: it is not difficult, if the troops are quick and steady. But to be a general, with patience and purpose and initiative, — ah!” thinks Private W., “for that you must have the man of genius ”

“ Yes, — and, to confirm my suspicions, here rattle in the drums and pipe in the fifes, wooing us to get up, get up, with music too peremptory to be harmonious.
I rise up sur mon séant and glance about me. I, Private W., chance, by reason of sundry chances, to be a member of a company recently largely recruited and bestowed all together in a big marquee. As I lift myself up, I see others lift themselves up on those straw bags we kindly call our mattresses. The tallest man of the regiment, Sergeant K., is on one side of me. ”

“ All which, — the bad teeth, pallid skins, and rustic toilets of the fair, and the very moderate horsemanship of the brave, — privates, standing at ease in the ranks, take note of, not cynically, but as men of the world. ”

“ When the orderly is satisfied that not one of us has run away and accepted a Colonelcy from the Confederate States since last roll-call, he notifies those unfortunates who are to be on guard for the next twenty-four hours of the honor and responsibility placed upon their shoulders. ”