But the people saw something more--execrated it, howled against it, spat upon it; and after the Seven Days before Richmond, their abhorrence culminated. That terrible something was _absenteeism_. Thousands and tens of thousands who should have been in their places in the army, were shamelessly absent when their brothers-in-arms were being sacrificed from their very want of numbers. Wounded soldiers who had come home on furlough, and afterwards recovered, had never rejoined their commands; and in spite of the calls of McClellan no steps had been taken to force them back into the ranks. The Provost Marshals were too busy looking for summer-boarders at Fort Lafayette and Fort Warren, to think of their obvious duty of protecting the armies of the Union against indolence and desertion! A still more serious defection existed among the officers--those who had been awhile in the service, and those who had merely entered it in _pretence_. Half the New York regiments, especially, had originally been officered by men who had no intention of fighting, and who merely took commissions and spent a few weeks in camp or in the field of inactive operations, in order that they might have "Colonel," "Major," or "Captain" attached to their names, and be ready to make more successful plunges into the flesh-pots of well-paid offices, on the plea that they had been "patriots" and "served the country" in its need. Hundreds had come home, leaving their commands half-officered, on one pretext or another, and their leaves-of-absence obtained by more or less of political influence or favoritism. They never intended to go back; for were not the elections coming within a few months? and was it not necessary to plough the political field with those very harmless swords in order to raise a fall crop of offices?