In came the new actors on this scene.  Our presence here was the inevitable sequel of past events.  We appeared with bayonets and bullets because of the bosh uttered on this floor; because of the bills—­with treasonable stump-speeches in their bellies—­passed here; because of the cowardice of the poltroons, the imbecility of the dodgers, and the arrogance of the bullies, who had here cooperated to blind and corrupt the minds of the people.  Talk had made a miserable mess of it.  The ultima ratio was now appealed to.

Some of our companies were marched up-stairs into the galleries.  The sofas were to be their beds.  With their white cross-belts and bright breastplates, they made a very picturesque body of spectators for whatever happened in the Hall, and never failed to applaud in the right or the wrong place at will.

Most of us were bestowed in the amphitheatre.  Each desk received its man.  He was to scribble on it by day, and sleep under it by night.  When the desks were all taken, the companies overflowed into the corners and into the lobbies.  The staff took committee-rooms.  The Colonel reigned in the Speaker’s parlor.

Once in, firstly, we washed.

Such a wash merits a special paragraph.  I compliment the M.C.s, our hosts, upon their water-privileges.  How we welcomed this chief luxury after our march!  And thenceforth how we prized it!  For the clean face is an institution which requires perpetual renovation at Washington.  “Constant vigilance is the price” of neatness.  When the sky here is not travelling earthward in rain, earth is mounting skyward in dust.  So much dirt must have an immoral effect.

After the wash we showed ourselves to the eyes of Washington, marching by companies, each to a different hotel, to dinner.  This became one of the ceremonies of our barrack-life.  We liked it.  The Washingtonians were amused and encouraged by it.  Three times a day, with marked punctuality, our lines formed and tramped down the hill to scuffle with awkward squads of waiters for fare more or less tolerable.  In these little marches, we encountered by-and-by the other regiments, and, most soldierly of all, the Rhode Island men, in blue flannel blouses and bersagliere hats.  But of them hereafter.

It was a most attractive post of ours at the Capitol.  Spring was at its freshest and fairest.  Every day was more exquisite than its forerunner.  We drilled morning, noon, and evening, almost hourly, in the pretty square east of the building.  Old soldiers found that they rattled through the manual twice as alert as ever before.  Recruits became old soldiers in a trice.  And as to awkward squads, men that would have been the veriest louts and lubbers in the piping times of peace now learned to toe the mark, to whisk their eyes right and their eyes left, to drop the butts of their muskets without crushing their corns, and all the mysteries of flank and file,—­and so became full-fledged heroes before they knew it.