If I was proud of the men, I was just as pleased with myself, or, I should say, with my luck. Only two weeks before I had been read out to the battalion at West Point, as one unfit to hold a commission, and here I was riding at the head of my own troop. I was no second lieutenant either, with a servitude of five years hanging over me before I could receive my first bar, but a full-fledged captain, with fifty men under him to care for and discipline and lead into battle. There was not a man in my troop who was not at least a few years older than myself, and as I rode in advance of them and heard the creak of the saddles and the jingle of the picket-pins and water-bottles, or turned and saw the long line stretching out behind me, I was as proud as Napoleon returning in triumph to Paris. I had brought with me from the Academy my scarlet sash, and wore it around my waist under my sword-belt. I also had my regulation gauntlets, and a campaign sombrero, and as I rode along I remembered the line about General Stonewall Jackson, in “Barbara Frietchie.” “The leader glancing left and right.” I repeated it to myself, and scowled up at the trees and into the jungle. It was a tremendous feeling to be a “leader.” At noon the heat was very great, and Laguerre halted the column at a little village and ordered the men to eat their luncheon. I posted pickets, appointed a detail to water the mules, and asked two of the inhabitants for the use of their clay ovens. In the other troops each man, or each group of men, were building separate fires and eating alone or in messes of five or six but by detailing four of my men to act as cooks for the whole troop, and six others to tend the fires in the ovens, and six more to carry water for the coffee, all of my men were comfortably fed before those in the other troops had their fires going. Von Ritter had said to me that during the two weeks in camp the men had used up all their tobacco, and that their nerves were on edge for lack of something to smoke. So I hunted up a native who owned a tobacco patch, and from him, for three dollars in silver, I bought three hundred cigars. I told Von Ritter to serve out six of them to each of the men of D Troop. It did me good to see how much they enjoyed them. For the next five minutes every man I met had a big cigar in his mouth, which he would remove with a grin, and say, “Thank you, Captain.” I did not give them the tobacco to gain popularity, for in active service I consider that tobacco is as necessary for the man as food, and I also believe that any officer who tries to buy the good-will of his men is taking the quickest way to gain their contempt.