Roach got on to their game, however, and one night planned to surprise them from the rear. He had been observed by someone who notified the poker players and they prepared a little surprise for him. When the major was walking up the back steps Sergt. ---- emptied a kettle of bean soup all over him. The sergeant paid the penalty by losing his chevrons; but I will add that after Roach had been dismissed from the service, the man whom he reduced to the ranks, became one of the best line officers of the regiment and at the assault of Petersburg won a captain’s bars for bravery. Another odd character among the officers was a certain lieutenant whom the boys named “Spider.” He was over fond of “commissary” and nearly always wore a pair of rubber boots. The men disliked him and never lost a chance to torment him--when it could be done without being detected--by calling out “here comes ‘Spider’ and his rubber boots.” CHAPTER III. LITTLE MAC AND HIS GRAND ARMY--THE SECOND BULL RUN. Probably the most popular commander of the Union forces in the civil war was General George B. McClellan. Whatever his faults, he was idolized by his men. Historians may write him up or down according to their bias, but the boys who carried the muskets away back in ’62, who were with him at Yorktown, Williamsburg, Malvern Hill, Fair Oaks and Antietam, believed in him and through all the long years since then have had a warm place in their hearts for the memory of Little Mac. We saw McClellan’s army start out in the spring of ’62 for their Peninsular campaign and our boys were hopping mad to think we were left behind. The great majority of the men really felt that the war would be ended before we had a chance to take a hand in. I may say that the drummer boys, full of young red blood, were as eager for the fray as the older men, but most of us had got enough of war before we reached Appomattox. THE IDOL OF HIS MEN. The greatest ovation that the writer ever saw given any general was on the occasion of McClellan’s return to the army after the second battle of Bull Run. It will be remembered that on his return from the Peninsular campaign he had been relieved and his troops had been ordered to join Pope’s forces. Gen. Pope was the man who, on assuming command a few weeks before, had announced with a flourish of trumpets that his headquarters would be “in the saddle.” But he was no match for “Stonewall” Jackson, who kept him running towards Washington, and would have annihilated his army at Manassas but for the timely arrival of McClellan’s forces. As it was, the army had to take refuge in the defenses of Washington and there was anxiety for the safety of the capitol.