The army
would not have been the popular thing it was, its close
identification with the people's movement would have been weakened,
and it perhaps would not so readily have melted again into the mass
of the nation at the close of the war.
Among the first of the young regular officers who came to Columbus
was Alexander McCook. He was ordered there as inspection and
mustering officer, and one of my earliest duties was to accompany
him to Camp Jackson to inspect the cooked rations which the
contractors were furnishing the new troops. I warmed to his earnest,
breezy way, and his business-like activity in performing his duty.
As a makeshift, before camp equipage and cooking utensils could be
issued to the troops, the contractors placed long trestle tables
under an improvised shed, and the soldiers came to these and ate, as
at a country picnic. It was not a bad arrangement to bridge over the
interval between home life and regular soldiers' fare, and the
outcry about it at the time was senseless, as all of us know who saw
real service afterward. McCook bustled along from table to table,
sticking a long skewer into a boiled ham, smelling of it to see if
the interior of the meat was tainted; breaking open a loaf of bread
and smelling of it to see if it was sour; examining the coffee
before it was put into the kettles, and after it was made; passing
his judgment on each, in prompt, peremptory manner as we went on.
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