Drills, drills, drills! For the next week we have nothing but drills--except guard duty. Squad drills, company drills, drills in the facings, drills under arms, drills in the morning, noonday drills, drills at night. Besides these, the office all day, and guard duty every third night. Talk about the patriotic days of '76! you think--was there ever anything like this? In less than a week everybody is played out; everybody, that is, except a lymphatic, dull-visaged backwoodsman, named Tetter, who drags through everything so slowly and heavily, that he can't get tired, and an old Polish cavalryman, named Hrsthzschnoffski, or something of the kind, but naturally called Snuffsky, who knows neither enthusiasm nor fatigue, who never volunteers for a duty nor ever begs off from it. Growls arise. Men pale about the cheeks, beady in the forehead, and dark under the eyes, begin to collect in knotlets, and talk over the situation. 'We enlisted to fight,' the bolder spirits hint; 'we came to fight, not to drill and guard armories. Why don't they take us out and let us whip the enemy, and go back to our business?' But presently comes _The 19th of April._ No drill to-night. What is that? A fight in Baltimore? Nonsense! True though, for all that, as history will vouch. Six regiments of Massachusetts troops have been attacked in Baltimore by the 'Plugs,' and cut to pieces. Where was the 'Seventh!' we wonder, educated in the creed of its invincibility and omnipresence. The Seventh was there too, and has been massacred. Colonel Lefferts is killed. There is a stir around the armory door, the knot of idlers gives way respectfully, and admits a little man, the pride of the regiment, always cool, collected, handsome, and soldierly--Colonel Diamond. He says half a dozen words in a whisper to the captain, writes three lines with a pencil on the fly leaf of an old letter, gives a comprehensive glance around, in which we feel he sees everything, salutes the captain, and marches briskly, almost noiselessly, into the street. Smallweed, the melancholy man, rolls up his blanket, packs his knapsack, combs his hair sadly, and moans out: 'Detail for the guard: Private Smallweed. I'm d----d if I stand this any longer! I'll write to----'