A. A. G. and the P. Q.
M. to get through the voluminous correspondence which was to result in
quarters and rations. At least twenty thousand men were crowded at that
time into this dismal quadrangle. Perseverance and patience could
overcome the prevalent impression at the commissary that every new
regiment was a set of unlawful intruders, to be starved out if possible,
but could not conquer the difficulty of crowding material bodies into
less space than they had been created to fill. Two companies had to be
packed into each department intended for one. As for 'field and staff,'
they were worse off than the privates, and took their first useful
lesson in the fact that they were by no means such distinguished
individuals in the large army as they had been when showing off their
new uniforms at home. It must have been comforting to over-sensitive
privates to hear how colonels and quartermasters were snubbed in their
turn by the 'general staff.' The regimental headquarters, where these
crest-fallen dignitaries should have laid their weary heads, were
tenanted by Captains A., who had a pretty wife with him, and B., who
gave such nice little suppers, and C., whose mother was first cousin to
the ugly half-breed that blew the general's trumpet from the roof of the
great house in the centre. Wherefore the colonel, the surgeon, the
chaplain, the quartermaster, and the 'subscriber' were content to spread
their blankets for the first night with a brace of captains, on the
particularly dirty floor of Company F.
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