the red gorge and debouched on Meridian Hill, where, presently, an aide-de-camp marked the ground assigned the regiment, and the real life of the soldier began.  How tame to tell, but how “imperial the hour” when these one thousand lads first went, on guard!  Yes, the fact was now before them.  They were no longer segregated atoms, inert, ineffective, eccentric.  They were part of that mighty bulwark of blood and iron that stood between law and rebellion, between the nation’s heart and the assassin dagger of disunion.

How proud and glad and manly they felt, these bright-eyed boys—­for boys they mostly were; not a hundred in the regiment had seen their five-and-twentieth year.  One razor would have been ample for the beards of the whole battalion.  And oh, the nameless, the intoxicating sense of solidarity as they swept the vast reach of hillsides, and saw the white tents in brooding immensity on either hand!  Yes, yonder, far across the wondrous belt of water, touching loyalty and rebellion in its mighty rush seaward, they could distinguish the cities of canvas on the distant Virginia shore.

“It makes a fellow feel as Godfrey’s hosts felt when they came in sight of the Bosporus, and the hordes of the Saracens on the plains of the Hellespont,” Jack said, exultingly, as Barney stood on a pile of camp equipages above him, surveying the quickening spectacle.

“I don’t know how Godfrey’s fellows felt, Jack, but it do make a man feel kinder able to do something with so many near by to lend a hand.  But, stars and garters! what a head it must take to manage all these!  Fair and square, now, Jack, you feel the fires of military genius in your big head—­do you think that you could disentangle this enormous coil—­put each corps, division, and regiment, in its proper place—­at a day’s notice?”

“Oh, I couldn’t perhaps do it just to-day; but give me time!”

“Yes, I’ll give you to the age of Methuselah, and then if you can manage it I shall not lose faith in you.”

“Come, men, the tents must be up before dark.  Sergeant Sprague, your squad has five tents for its detail.  You’ll find axes and tools at the quartermaster’s wagon on the hill yonder!” It was the captain who spoke, and, an instant later, the plot of ground, perhaps an acre and a half in area, was a scene of rollicking labor.  Each company had a street, the tents—­calculated to hold four each, but the number varied, going up often as high as six—­faced each other, leaving room enough for the company to march in column or in line between the white walls.  As the regiment would be presumably some time on the ground, the canvas tents rested on the top of a palisade of logs cut in the neighboring woods.  These were five feet or more in length, and when driven into the ground a foot, and banked by the sticky clay, served excellently as walls upon which to rest the A tents.  Two berths, sometimes four, were fastened laterally on these walls, frames running up to the center of the A held the guns, while lines stretched across from above served as wardrobes for such garments as could be hung up.