Such dreams as these were easy matters for most of us, who had no experience. With our regimental colors fresh from the hands of the two inevitable young ladies in white, who had presented them (with remarks suitable to the occasion), we saw nothing before us but a march of double quick to 'glory or the grave.' Luckily we had cooler heads among us: men who had fought in Mexico, camped in the gulches of California, drilled hordes of Indians in South America, led men in desperate starving marches over the plains. These went about making us comfortable in a very prosaic, practical way. The first call for volunteers from the ranks was not to defend a breach or lead a forlorn hope, as we had naturally expected, but--for carpenters. They were set to knocking down the clumsy bunks in the men's quarters and rebuilding them in more convenient shape, piercing the roof for ventilators, building shanties for the dispensary and the quartermaster's stores. Colonel and chaplain made a daily tour of the cook rooms and commissary, smelt of meat, tasted hard bread, dived into dinner pots, examined coffee grounds to see whether any of the genuine article had accidentally got mixed with the post supply of burnt peas. The surgeon commenced vaccinating the men, and taking precautions against every possible malady, old age, I believe, included. Meanwhile the adjutant and the sergeant-major shut themselves up in a back room like a counting house, and were kept busy copying muster rolls, posting huge ledger-like books, making out daily and nightly returns, receiving and answering elaborate letters from the official personages in the next building. The company officers and men were assigned their regular hours for drill, as well as for everything else that men could think of doing in barracks. In short, we found ourselves all drawn into the operations of a vast, cumbrous, slow-moving machine, with a great many more cogs than drivers, through which no regiment or any other body could pass rapidly. The time required in our case was nearly three months.