262 SEVENTH REGIMENT INFANTRY.

Discipline.

There was never much trouble in the discipline of the Seventh. So far as the
men were concerned, ordinary guard-house discipline sufficed for the common run of
petty offenses. The few deserters who were caught and brought back were, of course,
turned over to general court-martial for more serious punishment. There had not
been a single officer court-martialed down to this period of its history, although one had
resigned on request, and two were marked as deserters, with whom it would have fared
badly if they had been caught. Neither of these three could be said properly to have
belonged to the regiment, in the sense of being identified with the society from which it
came. At the time the regiment crossed the Rapidan in May, two of its officers marched
in the rear under arrest and charges, one of them, by express order from the War
Department, for some technical breach, but at the first heavy firing in the Wilderness
they were both ordered to resume their swords and expect no other trial than that which
awaited them in the woods.

Gen. Grant—Consolidation.

So matters went on, or rather stood still, until the last week in March, when the
Army of the Potomac was struck as if by lightning. In the general reorganization
ordered on the 23d of March, the old First Corps was "consolidated" out of existence, its
3d division was broken up, and the Maryland brigade was assigned to Warren's Fifth
Corps and became the 3d brigade of its 2d division, under Gen. John C. Robinson, a
regular army officer of distinction. The brigade was allowed to wear its old badges.
Gen. Kenly, in taking leave of his command, was greeted with a hearty expression of
good will and regret. Lieutenant-General Grant was at Culpeper, and the saying
among the men was that they were being "lieutenant-generalized."

Twice they were ordered out to be reviewed by him, and each time came back with-
out that satisfaction, the men calling him "Un Seen Grant." At last, on the 29th of
March, Grant himself, assisted by Meade and Warren, did actually review the 2d and
4th divisions of the 5th Corps, comprising the consolidated three divisions of the old
First.

It is now admitted that this consolidation, the reason for which was the reduced
strength of infantry regiments, was an unfortunate move to be made at the outset of a
sharp campaign. Among the organizations whose prized record and associations were
thus ignored, and whose cherished identity was lost, there was naturally at first some
soreness and wounded esprit de corps. (Humphrey's Va. Campaign, 3.)

The ceremony was like ail others of the kind, except that the marching past in re-
view was dispensed with. There was no cheering as the conqueror of Donaldson and
Vicksburg uncovered before each stand of regimental colors. He rode slowly, in a
business like, quiet manner, along the front of the massed battalions, looking critically
as he passed, not at the buttons, but at the faces, which, in turn, looked critically
at him. The men agreed that they saw nothing at all striking about him or his outfit;
nothing for effect, no self-consciousness, further than a sort of shy, half embarrassed,
half-bored look, on the surface, and behind it a certain depth of expression, as of reserve
force, grit, pluck, will power, energy, and masterful grasp.