“No sooner does a cavalry regiment arrive than, bang! it’s split up into troops—­a troop to escort General A., another to gallop after General B., another to sit around headquarters while General C. dozes after dinner!  And, if it’s not split up, it’s detailed bodily on some fool’s job instead of being packed off under a line officer to find out what is happening just beyond the end of the commander’s nose.

“The visitors like to see us drill—­like to see us charge, red pennons flying, lances at rest.  I like to see Rush’s Lancers, too.  But, all the same, sometimes when we go riding gaily down the road, some of those dingy, sunburnt Western regiments who have been too busy fighting to black their shoes line up along the road and repeat, monotonously: 

“‘Who-ever-saw-a-dead-cavalryman?’

“It isn’t what they say, Ailsa, it’s the expression of their dirty faces that turns me red, sometimes, and sometimes incites me to wild mirth.

“I’m writing this squatted under my ‘tente d’abri.’  General McClellan, with a preposterous staff the size of a small brigade, has just passed at a terrific gallop—­a handsome, mild-eyed man who has made us into an army, and who ornaments headquarters with an entire squadron of Claymore’s 20th Dragoons and one of our own 8th Lancers.  Well, some day he’ll come to me and say:  ’Ormond, I understand that there is only one man in the entire army fit to command it.  Accept this cocked hat.’

“That detail would suit me, dear.  I could get behind the casemates of Monroe and issue orders.  I was cut out to sit in a good, thick casemate and bring this cruel war to an end.

“A terribly funny thing happened at Alexandria.  A raw infantry regiment was camped near the seminary, and had managed to flounder through guard mount.  The sentinels on duty kept a sharp lookout and turned out the guard every time a holiday nigger hove in sight; and sentinels and guard and officer were getting awfully tired of their mistakes; and the day was hot, and the sentinels grew sleepy.

“Then one sentry, dozing awake, happened to turn and glance toward the woods; and out of it, over the soft forest soil, and already nearly on top of him, came a magnificent cavalcade at full gallop—­the President, and Generals McClellan and Benjamin Butler leading.

“Horror paralyzed him, then he ran toward the guard house, shrieking at the top of his lungs: 

“’Great God!  Turn out the guard!  Here comes Old Abe and Little Mac and Beast Butler!’

“And that’s all the camp gossip and personal scandal that I have to relate to you, dear.

“I’ll run the guard if I can, so help me Moses!

“And I am happier than I have ever been in all my life.  If I don’t run under fire you have promised not to stop loving me.  That is the bargain, remember.

“Here comes your late lamented.  I’m no favorite of his, nor he of mine.  He did me a silly trick the other day—­had me up before the Colonel because he said that it had been reported to him that I had enlisted under an assumed name.