The men were not yet armed,
so there was no temptation to begin too soon with the manual of the
musket, and they were kept industriously employed in marching in
single line, by file, in changing direction, in forming columns of
fours from double line, etc., before their guns were put in their
hands. Each regiment was treated as a separate camp, with its own
chain of sentinels, and the officers of the guard were constantly
busy teaching guard and picket duty theoretically to the reliefs off
duty, and inspecting the sentinels on post. Schools were established
in each regiment for field and staff and for the company officers,
and Hardee's Tactics was in the hands of everybody who could procure
a copy. It was one of our great inconveniences that the supply of
the authorized Tactics was soon exhausted, and it was difficult to
get the means of instruction in the company schools. An abridgment
was made and published in a very few days by Thomas Worthington, a
graduate of West Point in one of the earliest classes,--of 1827, I
think,--a son of one of the first governors of Ohio. This eccentric
officer had served in the regular army and in the Mexican War, and
was full of ideas, but was of so irascible and impetuous a temper
that he was always in collision with the powers that be, and spoiled
his own usefulness.
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