CHAPTER II ENTER THE SERVICE—TROUBLE ABOUT ARMS—CAUSE OF SECESSION The company was drilled from time to time, but was not armed until it entered the service about the 1st of May, 1861, at Lynchburg, Va., enlisting for one year. It was mustered into service by (then) Col. Jubal A. Early, as one of the ten companies of the Twenty-eighth Regiment of Virginia Infantry, Col. Robt. T. Preston, commanding. At that time there were about eighty-five men in the company, made up of the young men from several miles around Pigeon Run. I had one brother, Geo. W., called "Coon"; a brother-in-law, Robt. M. Cocke, and many kinsmen and connections in the company; the young Joneses, the Hobsons, the Baileys, and others were relations of myself or wife. We were all friends and neighbors, and many were former schoolmates. Most of them young unmarried men, many in their teens. I had been married not quite five months when the war came on. None of the officers or men had any military education, but little training in drilling and none in camp life, and were all, officers and men, quite green and inexperienced in military affairs generally. But we all knew how to handle guns and how to shoot straight. These young men made as brave and faithful soldiers as any in the army; always ready to do their duty, to go wherever ordered; standing firm in action. But I think none of them liked to fight just for the fun of it; I did not for one, I well know. It was of this class of men that the army of Northern Virginia was made up. That army was composed of the very pick and flower of the Southern youth, and made a name and fame that will live always. At the beginning of the war, at Manassas, Gen. G. T. Beauregard issued a general order, in which he said that strict military rules of discipline would not be enforced, that the general commanding would depend upon the good breeding of the men, rather than harsh military discipline, to insure good order and efficiency in the army. This kind of discipline prevailed all through the war. General Grant soon after he met Lee in the Wilderness said in a dispatch to Washington that the Rebel army was very hard to drive, so well was it disciplined. It was not discipline that made this army so effective, but rather the courageous and patriotic spirit of the men who carried the guns. TROUBLE ABOUT ARMS As before said, the company had not been armed up to the time of enlistment. The company was organized as a rifle company; we expected to be armed with the "Mississippi Rifle." Soon after we got to Lynchburg it was learned that rifles could not be procured, the only arms available being old flint-lock muskets changed to percussion. All guns in those days were muzzle-loaders; the breech-loaders had not been invented.