THE regiment was saved. Furthermore, it was actually, if not legally, in the service of the United States. But there yet remained certain complex processes which had to be gone through with before the "U.S.V." should supplant the "M.V.M." By a pleasant legal fiction, it had to be assumed that the militia regiment which had set out for Fort Warren had been lost somewhere _en route_, and that it had become imperatively necessary to raise a new regiment to take its place in the volunteer service. All this, of course, was but the most utter rubbish—and rubbish which under easily supposable conditions might prove dangerous—yet the obsolete militia laws which Congress has left upon the statute books, unaltered for nearly a century, made its observance necessary. General Dalton therefore (Special Orders, No. 45, 29th April) gravely issued instructions for the formation of the new regiment, though oddly enough he neglected the matter of making inquiries as to what had become of the old one. These instructions were brief and to the point: "Colonel Charles Pfaff, having been designated to command a volunteer regiment of heavy artillery, under the call of the President of the United States, will cause the enrolment of such officers and men as may volunteer in such regiment, and will cause to be prepared the necessary papers for muster into service of such volunteers, by Major Carle A. Woodruff, commanding at Fort Warren." This order meant two things for the officers of the First. It required a final and most careful revision of the battery rolls, and a last searching scrutiny by the medical officers of the physical condition of the rank and file. Of these two requirements, the first was by far the most important. Had the regiment been formed in line, and the order been given for volunteers to step to the front, there can be no question that the command would have responded to the last man. But it was exactly this sort of thing that the officers wished to avoid. The regiment was about to enter upon a two-years' term of service, and its officers felt it their duty to discourage the enlistment of all whose families or dependents would suffer undue hardship should that term prove necessary. It was felt that any public call for volunteers would place men in false positions—as such procedure actually did in many States—and it was decided quietly to inquire into the merits of each individual case, refusing such men as could not show that their entry into the service would not work material injury either to themselves or to others. By adhering to this rule, the regiment lost a small percentage of the strength with which it went out, but the drain was easily made good by draft from the eager recruits who had been left behind. Better still, the men rejected for these reasons were enabled to retain their self-respect, and they left for their homes with the sympathy and good-will of their late comrades.