Standards of discipline changed with commanding officers. When he became post commander at Camp Robinson Colonel Mackenzie directed that the officers’ billiard room in the post trader’s store would be closed and no cards or billiards would be played on Sundays. Court-martials of enlisted men were frequent and punishment sometimes went beyond simple hard labor. One thirty day sentence provided that for twelve days the prisoner was to “stand on a barrel from reveille to retreat allowing one half hour for each meal.” Some sentences were for relatively minor infractions. At Camp Sheridan a musician was court-martialed for disobeying an order relative to the key in which he played “First Call.”[30] Men of the garrison worked six days a week, their routine beginning and ending with the rising and setting sun. On Sunday morning there was a full dress parade and inspection.[31] Beef and bread, supplemented by wild game and vegetables grown by the soldiers in company gardens, were the main items of diet, although the issued foods included pork, bacon, flour, cornmeal, beans, peas, rice, hominy, coffee, sugar, vinegar, salt and pepper. Beef was often eaten twice a day; steak for breakfast and roast for lunch, with the evening meal consisting of pancakes or stewed dried apples. Both officers and men could purchase additional foods at the post commissary which carried canned tomatoes, raisins, hams and other items. In addition to post trader Paddock’s store at Camp Robinson, Clay Dear’s store at Camp Canby and J. W. Dear’s at Red Cloud Agency were sources of delicacies. Mrs. McGillycuddy describes her efforts to obtain oysters from these suppliers. A major problem of the Army during the Indian Wars was desertion. Some men enlisted merely to obtain shelter for the winter or transportation to the West and others became dissatisfied with the rigors of Army life. In contrast were the enlisted men who devoted their lives to the service and formed the noncommissioned core of the Army. Sergeants and corporals often had to back up their commands with more than their chevrons when dealing with unruly members of the ranks. One sergeant of the guard at Fort Robinson so stoutly enforced his commands that the recalcitrant private died of a fractured skull.[32] The sergeant’s action was vindicated by a court inquiry. The officers were an experienced group and devoted to an Army career. Many had risen, like Guy V. Henry, to the rank of general during the Civil War, only to revert to their regular rank when the Army was reduced to its “peacetime” Indian War size of about 25,000 men. Others came “up from the ranks,” as Emmet Crawford who fought through the War between the States as an enlisted man and noncom and was then commissioned. John G. Bourke graduated from West Point after serving through the Civil War as a private.