came into use, and each man was his own wagon, the General was seldom heard unless at the end of a long encampment; for, when marching orders came, each man understood that he must be ready at the hour appointed, even if his regiment waited another day before it left camp.

No more provoking incident of army life happened, I believe, than for a regiment to wait in camp long after the hour appointed to march. But such was the rule rather than the exception. Many a man's hearth-stone was then desolate, for if the hour of departure was set for the morning, when morning came and the stockade was vacated, it often suffered demolition to increase the heat of the campfires, as previously noted. But as hour after hour wore on, and men still found themselves in camp with nothing to do and plenty of help, they began to wish that they had not been so hasty in breaking up housekeeping and tearing down their shanties, else they might resort to them and make their wait a little more endurable. Especially did they repent if rain came on as they lingered, or if night again overtook them there with their huts untenable, for it would have been the work of only a moment to re-cover them with the Shelter tents. Such waits and their consequences were severe tests to the patience of the men, and sometimes seemed to work more injury to their morals than the average army chaplain could repair in days.

But there is an end to all things earthly, this being no exception. The colors of corps headquarters borne at the heels of the corps commander, and followed by his staff, are at last seen moving into the road. The bugler of the division having the lead sounds the call Attention.

Allegro. 6

ATTENTION.

This call is the Attention of infantry at which the men, already in column, take their places, officers mount, and all await the next call, which is

6

FORWARD.

D.C.

At this signal the regiments take "right shoulder shift," and the march begins. Let the reader, in imagination, take post by the roadside as the column goes by. Take a look at corps headquarters. The commander is a major-general. His staff comprises an assistant adjutant-general, an assistant inspector-general, a topographical engineer, a commissary of musters, a commissary of subsistence, a judgeadvocate, several aides-de-camp-and perhaps other officers, of varying rank. Those mentioned usually ranked from colonel to captain. In the Union army, major-generals might command either a division, a corps, or an army, but in the Confederate service each army of importance was commanded by a lieutenant-general. Take a look at the corps headquarters flag. Feb. 7, 1863, General Hooker decreed the flags of corps headquarters to be a blue swallow-tail field bearing a white Maltese cross, having in the centre the number of the corps; but, so far as I can learn, this decree was never enforced in a single instance. Mr. James Beale, in his exceedingly valuable and unique volume, "The Union Flags at Gettysburg," shows a nondescript cross on some of the headquarters flags, which some quartermaster may have intended as a compliance with Hooker's order; but though true copies of originals they are monstrosities, which never could have had existence in a well ordered brain, and which have no warrant in heraldry or general

orders as far as can be ascertained.

When the army en

tered upon the Wilderness Campaign, each corps headquarters floated a blue swallow-tailed flag bearing its own particular emblem in white, in the centre of which was the figure designating the corps, in red.

Here comes the First Division. At the head rides its general commanding and staff. Behind him is the colorbearer, carrying the division flag. If you are familiar with the corps badges, you will not need to ask what corps or division it is. The men's caps tell the story, but the flags are equally plain-spoken.

This flag is the first division color. It is rectangular in shape. The corps emblem is red in a white field; the second has the emblem white in a blue field; the third has the emblem blue in a white field. The divisions had the lead of the corps on the march by turns, changing each day.

But here comes another headquarters. The color-bearer carries a triangular flag. That is a brigade flag. May 12, 1863, General Hooker issued an order prescribing division flags of the pattern I have described, and also designated what the brigade flags should be. They were to be, first of all, triangular in shape; the brigades of the first division should bear the corps symbol in red in the centre of a white field, but, to distinguish them, the first brigade should have no other mark; the second should have a blue stripe next the staff, and the third a blue border four and one-half inches wide around the flag.

The brigades of the second division had the corps symbol in white in the centre of a blue field, with a red stripe next the staff to designate the second brigade, and a red border the third.

The third division had its brigades similarly designated, with the symbol blue, the field white, and the stripes red. Whenever there was a fourth brigade, it was designated by a triangular block of color in each corner of the flag.