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and all that, it is infinitely exaggerated — to stop furious runaway horses, to enter a burning house, to plunge in a boiling ocean, requires far more personal pluck than to have “dem dar bullets let loose after we” as my men describe it; the danger is so invisible, it is not nearly so hard to disregard it; I know what I say. Bomb shells are far worse, but we have only fired, not received them.
It amuses me . . . to hear Colonels and Majors of freshwater regiments say guardedly “Your regiment does much better than I expected” when they know and I know and they know that I know that their regiments could n't form square forward on the centre even if there were to be an adjutant's wedding in the middle.
For the delights of skirmishes with the enemy were varied by a wedding in camp, and of this event
Colonel Higginson wrote in his journal:—
Well, the Adjutant is fairly and thoroughly married . . . The band of the 8th Maine Regiment appeared at Dress Parade; the men looked neat and soldierly in their blue uniforms (having got rid of the wretched red trousers, which they hated) and all was well . . . .The Army Regulations do not provide for regimental weddings; as Colonel I was first to congratulate the bride, but omitted embraces as not being specified in the Tactics.
Of two of his officers, he wrote:—
Poor weak fellows, they would have been splendid officers without their wives—[who were] two
