The Photographic History of The Civil War: in ten volumes, Thousands of Scenes Photographed 1861-65, with Text by many Special Authorities, Volume 8: Soldier Life and Secret Service.
Francis Trevelyan Miller, Ed.

[120] of the roar of the battle! Very, very rarely you will meet a German, like that superb soldier, Major Von Borcke, who so endeared himself to ‘Jeb’ Stuart's cavalry. But these exceptions only accentuate the broad fact that the Confederate army was composed almost exclusively of Americans. That throws some light on its achievements, does it not?

I think the visitor to the Confederate camps would also be struck by the spirit of bonhommie which so largely prevailed. These ‘Johnnie Rebs,’ in their gray uniforms (which, as the war went on, changed in hue to butternut brown) are a jolly lot. They have a dry, racy humor of their own which breaks out on the least provocation. I have often heard them cracking jokes on the very edge of battle. They were soldier boys to the bitter end!

General Rodes, in his report, describing the dark and difficult night-passage of the Potomac on the retreat from Gettysburg, says, ‘All the circumstances attending this crossing combined to make it an affair not only involving great hardship, but one of great danger to the men and company officers; but, be it said to the honor of these brave fellows, they encountered it not only promptly, but actually with cheers and laughter.’

On the other hand, some from the remote country districts were like children away from home. They could not get used to it—and often they drooped, and sickened and died, just from nostalgia. In many of the regiments during the first six months or more of the war, there were negro cooks, but as time went on these disappeared, except in the officers' mess. Among the Marylanders, where my service lay, it was quite different. We had to do our own cooking. Once a week, I performed that office for a mess of fifteen hungry men. At first we lived on ‘slapjacks’—almost as fatal as Federal bullets!—and fried bacon; but by degrees we learned to make biscuits, and on one occasion my colleague in the culinary business and I created an apple pie, which the whole mess