1 5 8

GOING TO THE FRONT.

PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE, WASHINGTON. FROM A SKETCH MADE IN 1861.

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marched in it, and run from the provost-guard in it, and I think I appreciateit from actual and familiar knowledge. In the lower quarter of the citythere was not a piece of sidewalk. Even Pennsylvania Avenue, with its side-walks, was extremely dirty; and the cavalcade of teams, artillery caissons,and baggage-wagons, with their heavy wheels, stirred the mud into a stiffbatter for the pedestrian.

Officers in tinsel and gold lace were so thick on Pennsylvania Avenue thatit was a severe trial for a private to walk there. The salute exacted byofficers, of bringing the hand to the visor of the cap, extending the arm to itsfull length, and then letting it drop by the side, was tiresome when followedup with the industry required by this horde. Perhaps I exaggerate, but in ahalf-hour’s walk on the avenue I think I have saluted two hundred officers.Brigadier-generals were more numerous there than I ever knew them to be atthe front. These officers, many of whom won their positions by politicalwire-pulling at Washington, we privates thought the great bane of the war;they ought to have been sent to the front rank of battle, to serve as privatesuntil they had learned the duties of a soldier. Mingled with these gaudy,useless officers were citizens in search of fat contracts, privates, “ non-com’s ”and officers whose uniforms were well worn and faded, showing that theywere from encampments and active service. Occasionally a regiment passedthrough the streets, on the way to camp; all sui’ged up and down widePennsylvania Avenue.

The soldiers of this period were eager to collect mementoes of the war.One of my acquaintances in another regiment made sketches of the differentcamps he had visited around Washington, including “ Brightwood ” and Camp