A GRAND REVIEW.
On a certain day near the beginning of April, 1863, we were ordered
to prepare for a grand review of our corps. President Lincoln, Mrs.
Lincoln, Master Tad Lincoln (who used to play among our tents at
"Soldiers' Home"), and some of the Cabinet officers, were coming
down to look us over and see what promise we gave for the campaign
soon to open.
Those who have never seen a grand review of well-drilled troops
in the field have never seen one of the finest and most inspiring
sights the eyes of man can behold. I wish I could impart to my
readers some faint idea of the thrilling scene which must have
presented itself to the eyes of the beholders when, on the morning
of the ninth day of April, 1863, our gallant First Army Corps,
leaving its camps among the hills, assembled on a wide, extended
plain for the inspection of our illustrious visitors.
As regiment after regiment, and brigade after brigade, came
marching out from the surrounding hills and ravines, with flags
gayly flying, bands and drum corps making such music as was enough
to stir the blood in the heart of the most indifferent to a
quicker pulse, and well-drilled troops that marched in the morning
sunlight with a step as steady as the stroke of machinery,--ah!
it was a sight to be seen but once in a century! And when those
twenty thousand men were all at last in line, with the artillery
in position off to one side on the hill, and ready to fire their
salute, it seemed well worth the President's while to come all the
way from Washington to look at them.
[Illustration: WAITING TO BE REVIEWED BY THE PRESIDENT.]
But the President was a long, long time in coming. The sun,
mounting fast toward noon, began to be insufferably hot. One hour,
two hours, three hours were passing away, when, at last, far off
through a defile between the hills, we caught sight of a great
cloud of dust.
"Fall in, men!" for now here they come, sure enough. Mr. and Mrs.
Lincoln in a carriage, escorted by a body of cavalry and groups of
officers, and at the head of the cavalcade Master Tad, big with
importance, mounted on a pony, and having for his especial escort
a boy orderly, dressed in a cavalry-man's uniform, and mounted
on another pony! And the two little fellows, scarce restraining
their boyish delight, outride the company, and come on the field
in a cloud of dust and at a full gallop,--little Tad shouting to
the men, at the top of his voice: "Make way, men! Make way, men!
Father's a-coming! Father's a-coming!"
Then the artillery breaks forth into a thundering salute, that
wakes the echoes among the hills and sets the air to shivering and
quaking about your ears, as the cavalcade gallops down the long
line, and regimental standards droop in greeting, and bands and
drum corps, one after another, strike up "Hail to the Chief," till
they are all playing at once in a grand chorus that makes the hills
ring as they never rang before.
But all this is only a flourish by way of prelude. The real
beauty of the review is yet to come, and can be seen only when the
cavalcade, having galloped down the line in front and up again on
the rear, has taken its stand out yonder immediately in front of
the middle of the line, and the order is given to "pass in review."
Notice now, how, by one swift and dexterous movement, as the
officers step out and give the command, that long line is broken
into platoons of exactly equal length; how, straight as an arrow,
each platoon is dressed; how the feet of the men all move together,
and their guns, flashing in the sun, have the same inclination.
Observe particularly how, when they come to wheel off, there is no
_bend_ in the line, but they wheel as if the whole platoon were a
ramrod made to revolve about its one end through a quarter-circle;
and now that they are marching thus down the field and past the
President, what a grandeur there is in the steady step and onward
sweep of that column of twenty thousand boys in blue!
But once we have passed the President and gained the other end of
the field, it is not nearly so fine. For we must needs finish
the review in a double-quick, just by way of showing, I suppose,
what we could do if we were wanted in a hurry,--as indeed we
shall be, not more than sixty days hence! Away we go, then, on a
dead run off the field, in a cloud of dust and amid a clatter of
bayonet-scabbards, till, hid behind the hills, we come to a more
sober pace, and march into camp just as tired as tired can be.
[Illustration]