_Walking Down Pennsylvania Avenue_
_April 7, 1864_.--Warmish forenoon, after the storm of the past few
days. I see, passing up, in the broad space between the curbs, a big
squad of a couple of hundred conscripts, surrounded by a strong
cordon of arm'd guards, and others interspers'd between the ranks. The
government has learn'd caution from its experiences; there are many
hundreds of "bounty jumpers," and already, as I am told, eighty thousand
deserters! Next (also passing up the Avenue,) a cavalry company, young,
but evidently well drill'd and service-harden'd men. Mark the upright
posture in their saddles, the bronz'd and bearded young faces, the easy
swaying to the motions of the horses, and the carbines by their right
knees; handsome and reckless, some eighty of them, riding with rapid
gait, clattering along. Then the tinkling bells of passing cars, the
many shops (some with large show-windows, some with swords, straps
for the shoulders of different ranks, hat-cords with acorns, or other
insignia,) the military patrol marching along, with the orderly or
second-lieutenant stopping different ones to examine passes--the forms,
the faces, all sorts crowded together, the worn and pale, the pleas'd,
some on their way to the railroad depot going home, the cripples, the
darkeys, the long trains of government wagons, or the sad strings of
ambulances conveying wounded--the many officers' horses tied in front
of the drinking or oyster saloons, or held by black men or boys, or
orderlies.