I now fully accepted it as a rule that a soldier must submit to military law; but many, like myself, had lost a great deal of that early enthusiasm for a soldier’s life by the time we had reached Columbus. It had struck us when at picket-duty alone, in the dark, that we had been great fools to place ourselves voluntarily in a position whence we could not retreat without forfeit of life; and that, by a monosyllable, we had made our comrades our possible enemies upon a single breach of our oath. We had condemned ourselves to a servitude more slavish than that of the black plantation-hands, about whose condition North and South had declared war to the death. We could not be sold, but our liberties and lives were at the disposal of a Congress about which I, at least, knew nothing, except that, somewhere, it had assembled to make such laws as it pleased. Neither to Captain Smith, nor to Lieutenant Mason, nor even to my messmate Armstrong, could I speak with freedom. Any of them might strike me, and I should have to submit. They could make me march where they pleased, stand sentry throughout the night, do fatigue-duty until I dropped, load my back as they would a mule, ride me on a rail, make a target of me if I took a quiet nap at my post; and there was no possible way out of it. To say the truth, I had not even a desire to shirk the duties I had undertaken. I was quite prepared and ready to do all that was required; for I loved the South because I loved my Southern friends, and had absorbed their spirit into every pore. Nevertheless, when far removed from the hubbub of camp, at my isolated post, my reason could not be prevented from taking a cynical view of my folly in devoting myself to be food for powder, when I might have been free as a bird, to the extent of my means. And if, among my vague fancies, I had thought that, by gallantry, I might win promotion such as would be some compensation for the sacrifice of my liberty, that idea had been exploded as soon as I had measured myself by hundreds of cleverer, abler, and braver men, and saw that they, even, had no chance of anything but to fill a nameless grave. The poetry of the military profession had departed under the stress of many pains, the wear and tear, and the certainty that soldiering was to consist of commonplace marches, and squalid camp-life. The punishment inflicted on such as were remiss in their duties during the march had opened my eyes to the consequences of any misdemeanour, or an untimely ebullience of youthful spirits. I had seen unfortunate culprits horsed on triangular fence-rails, and jerked up by vicious bearers, to increase their pains; others, straddled ignominiously on poles; or fettered with ball and chain; or subjected to head-shaving; or tied up with the painful buck and gag; or hoisted up by the thumbs; while no one was free of fatigue-duty, or exempt from fagging to someone or other, the livelong day.