Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/68

58 about, collar and sleeves bound with black braid, and a similar stripe down the gray trousers. They were all boys The age of the First Maryland rank and file would not have averaged nineteen, nor their height over five feet eight, nor their weight above one hundred and thirty-five pounds. They were generally beardless boys, with the spirits, the enthusiasm, the devotion of boys. A large per cent were gentlemen by birth and culture. All were gentlemen at heart and principle. Exiles from home, volunteers to help a friend, staking life for love, they must of necessity have been impressed with an ardent sentimentality and a devotion beyond the ordinary standard of humanity. Around the camp-fires, on the lonely picket, on the march, what recollections of home did they not carry with them, the lengthening chain that time nor distance ever breaks. During the summer they became well drilled. They believed they were the best drilled corps in the army—in either army—in any army for that matter, for the Marylander never loses anything by diffidence or self-depreciation. He always thinks as well of himself as any one ever thinks of him. Beauregard said they marched like Frenchmen. This set them up; but more knowledge would have restrained their self-conceit, for no Frenchmen have ever marched or moved as brightly as they did. Beauregard's compliment was to his own people, not to ours.

Joseph E. Johnston's wife was a Maryland woman, and he, tough old soldier as he was, had a tender spot in his heart for Marylanders, and whenever they passed him at review or on the march, he always had a pleasant word to say about them. It is due to the truth of history to say that during the summer and fall of 1861 the first Maryland regiment became as conceited a set of young blades as ever faced a battery or charged a line of battle.

Variety is a virtue in a soldier. Beauregard wanted a line of Yankee posts along the Potomac overlooking Alexandria seized. It required dash, quickness, unfailing