These replacements had absolutely no conception of military etiquette. They wanted to do what was right, but they didn't know anything. When one man from a western National Guard regiment--incidentally he was a German by birth--came up to me with a message from his company commander, he would always begin with, "Say." One time I asked him when he was born and he told me in 1848, which impressed me as being a slight overstatement. Subsequent investigation proved that 1878 was the year. Incidentally he fought very gallantly, and was fortunate enough to get through the war, being with the regiment when I left it in Germany. One huge fellow called Swanson, from North Dakota, turned up. Swanson was a fine soldier in every way, but the government had not figured on a man of Swanson's size. Never when he was in my command were we able to get a blouse to fit him. He turned out on parade, went to the trenches, and appeared on all other occasions in a ragged brown sweater. Some of the men we got could not speak English. One squad in particular we had to form in such a fashion that the corporal could act as interpreter. Once turning around a corner I came upon a group of four or five soldiers. All of them except one saluted properly. He merely grinned in a good-natured, friendly fashion. I started to read him the riot act, asking why he thought he was different from the rest of the men, what he meant by it, did he put himself in a class by himself, and so forth. About half way through one of the other men interrupted me. "Sir," he said, "that guy there he don't understand English." We found someone who could speak his language, had the matter explained to him, and found it was simply that he did not understand. He wanted to do what was right and he wanted to play the game. These replacements had very long hair and looked very shabby. One of the first things we did was to have their hair cut. There are many reasons why troops should keep their hair cut. It looks neater for one thing, but, far more important, it is sanitary, and where baths are few and far between short hair makes a great difference. Each company has a barber. Therefore the excitement was at fever pitch once in Company B when Loreno, its barber, deserted and got to Italy, taking with him the barber tools. As a result they used mule clippers for some time.