The commotion soon subsided and there was not a sound except for the neighing of the horses in the cavalry camps and the whinnering of the mules of the wagon train, and after a couple of hours’ waiting the men were marched back to their company streets. In the morning it was learned that the alarm was occasioned by the attempt of a detachment of Mosby’s men to steal some horses from a cavalry camp. These midnight excursions of the famous Confederate “Rough Rider” were of frequent occurrence during the first two years of the war. THE FIRST UNIFORM. The young recruit’s first uniform was a bad fit. The coat sleeves and pants were several inches too long, but a camp tailor fixed them and the first day the boy wore the suit he did as every other volunteer before him had done, went and posed for a “tintype” before a background representing various scenes of military life. Some of the specimens of the photographer’s art in those days were enough to make a horse laugh. The Second New York had been organized as a light artillery regiment and were then known as the “Morgan Flying Artillery,” so called in honor of Gov. Morgan, but only one company got their guns and horses when it was decided that no more light batteries were wanted. So the balance of the regiment was turned into heavy artillery (heavy infantry.) A DRUMMER BOY. The change called for fifers and drummers instead of buglers, and the Jefferson county boy was the first drummer the regiment had, his drum being a present from the officers at Fort Worth. A full regimental drum corps was soon organized, and right here it may be proper to say that an old army drum corps in the sixties could make music. A boy would not “pass muster” in those days unless he could do the double and single drag with variations, execute the “long roll,” imitate the rattle of musketry, besides various other accomplishments with the sticks. And when a dozen or more of the lads, with their caps set saucily on the sides of their heads, led a regiment in a review with their get-out-of-the-way-Old-Dan-Tuckerish style of music, it made the men in the ranks step off as though they were bound for a Donnybrook fair or some other pleasure excursion. THE FIRST DRUM. It is with feelings of real tenderness that I write of my first drum. It was none of the common sort such as furnished by Uncle Sam, but was the best that money could buy, and was a gift from the officers at Fort Worth in the spring of 1862. A requisition for instruments was a long time in being filled, owing to the vast amount of red tape in use, so the officers at our fort presented me with a drum. How well I remember the day when I accompanied Capt. Joslin to Washington, and he, taking me into a large music store on Pennsylvania avenue, ordered the clerk to let me have the best drum in the store.