SEVENTH REGIMENT INFANTRY. 261

details for fatigue and working parties ; an occasional detail for recruiting service
(a rare and soft thing); leaves of absence and furloughs granted, ditto refused;
here are circulars, certificates, discharges, descriptive lists of recruits, descriptive lists of
deserters, inventories of the effects of deceased soldiers, abstracts of unserviceable ord-
nance stores, boards to assess value of officers' private horses, pay rolls, muster rolls,
muster in and muster out rolls; and here are inspection reports, criticising one regiment
for unsanitary condition, another for neglect of military courtesy in saluting, a third for
want of schools of tactical instruction. And so on through the whole tedious catalogue,
and all this mechanism requiring the consumption of tons of stationery, acres of printed
blanks, the tugging this way and that of many thousands of braying mules, and the
incessant galloping to and fro of staff officers, mounted orderlies and couriers, always
with an intense air of the utmost importance.

Regimental Routine.

This was about the life of the army in brief, looking at it as an organism. Taking
a nearer view, the history of one regiment was about that of every other regiment, and
the history of one day pretty much the same as that of every day. Reveille at daylight,
police call fifteen minutes after, surgeons' call, breakfast, guard-mount, drill, recall,
dinner, drill again, recall again, first call for parade and company inspection, second
call and dress parade with retreat at sunset, tattoo about nine P. M., with taps twenty
minutes later; so began, continued and ended the soldier's day. On Saturdays there
was a special inspection of quarters, and the coverings of the tents, weather permitting,
were removed. On Sundays drills were omitted, regimental inspections preceded guard-
mount, and the men were assembled for divine service, for which, unfortunately, the
Seventh was compelled to depend upon the chaplains of other commands. On the last
day of the month was inspection and muster, and muster for pay when the paymaster

came.

Drill.

The afternoon was devoted to battalion and the morning to company drill. Brigade
and division drill, and evolutions of the line were 'specially appointed. The evenings
were all supposed to be devoted by the officers to "recitations in tactics and revised army
regulations," either at regimental or brigade headquarters, and the hours appointed for
drill were, by express order, "to be employed in exercise and not in resting." Particular
attention was required to the skirmish drill, and target practice. The penalty for inat-
tention and blundering in drill was the "awkward squad," whose "balance step,"
"goose step," "shanghai step," and other gymnastic eccentricities, sometimes with
loaded knapsacks, never failed to cause sufficient diversion to outsiders.

In the Seventh, it was the invariable practice to close every battalion drill with the
"rally on the colors." Ranks were broken, the companies mixed, and as much confu-
sion and disorder made as possible. While this was going on, the colors were advanced or
retired over the rise of a neighboring hill, as much out of view as practicable, and markers
posted. At the drum signal, the color-guard loudly cheered, and the men raced, with a
great shout, to find their places in line or in column, according to the position of the
markers. The men greatly enjoyed this exercise, and its value was soon practically
illustrated in the Wilderness campaign.