There is nothing to suggest military brilliancy about this squad.
Attitudes are as prosaic as uniforms are unpicturesque. The only man
standing with military correctness is the officer at the left-hand end.
But this was the material out of which was developed the soldier who could
average sixteen miles a day for weeks on end, and do, on occasion, his
thirty miles through Virginia mud and his forty miles over a hard
Pennsylvania highway. Sixteen miles a day does not seem far to a single
pedestrian, but marching with a regiment bears but little relation to a
solitary stroll along a sunny road. It is a far different matter to trudge
along carrying a heavy burden, choked by the dust kicked up by hundreds of
men tramping along in front, and sweltering in the sun--or trudge still
more drearily along in a pelting rain which added pounds to a soaked and
clinging uniform, and caused the soldiers to slip and stagger in the mud.
[Illustration: "RIGHT SHOULDER SHIFT"--COLUMN OF FOURS--THE TWENTY-SECOND
NEW YORK ON THE ROAD