Those who were innocent of all breaches of ‘good order and discipline’ had reason to lament having sacrificed their independence, for our brigade-commander, and regimental officers, were eaten up with military zeal, and were resolved upon training us to the perfection of soldierly efficiency, and, like Bully Waters of the ‘Windermere,’ seemed to think that it was incumbent on them to get the full value of our keep and pay out of us. They clung to the antiquated notion that soldiers were appointed as much to drudge for their personal service as for the purposes of war. Besides the morning and evening musters, the nine o’clock dress-parade, the drill from that hour to noon, the cleaning of arms and accoutrements, the frequent interruptions of rest by the ‘long roll’ heard in the dead of night, the guard-duty, or picket, we had to cook our provisions, put up the officers’ tents, make their beds soft as straw and hay or grass could make them, collect fuel for their fires, dig ditches around their tents, and fag for them in numberless ways. These made a mighty list of harassments, which, on account of the miserably hard fare, and insufficient preparation of it, weighed on our spirits like lead, tended to diminish our number by disease, and sent hundreds to the hospital. The Dixie Greys, for instance, consisted mostly of young men and lads who were as ignorant of the art of converting their ration of raw beef and salt pork, field beans, and flour, into digestible food, as they were of laundry work; yet they were daily served with rations, which they might eat raw, or treat as they liked. Of course, they learnt how to cook in time; but, meanwhile, they made sorry messes of it, and suffered accordingly. Those with good constitutions survived their apprenticeship, and youth, open air, and exercise, enabled them to bear it a long time; but when, with improper food, the elements chilled and heated us with abrupt change, and arbitrary officialism employed its wits to keep us perpetually on the move, it becomes evident, now, why only the hardiest were enabled to bear the drudgery and vexation imposed upon them, and why disease slew more than two-thirds of the whole number of soldiers who perished during the war.