Page:Into Mexico with General Scott (1920).djvu/192

 minute for the troop call, and one hundred and ten to the minute for quick time and the salutes; the drag, one hundred and forty beats to the minute, for double-quick time, and the long roll, in sections as fast as one could work the drumsticks, for alarms.

Then there were the many calls: The general, for the whole camp to prepare to break up; the assembly, for the companies to fall in; to the color, for the companies to form regiments; the reveille, or first call, in the early morning, to wake the camp up; the tattoo, or last call, in the evening, to send the camp to bed; the drummers' call, or musicians' call; come for orders, and the call to the sergeants or corporals; the retreat call, for evening parade; and in the field the halt, the recall, the march in retreat, the run or charge, and the commence firing.

A drummer boy had to have a good ear and lots of constant practice to do all these things, with the drum major or some of the veteran drummers criticizing.

There were one drummer and one fifer in each company of infantry and artillery, although the battery sections usually had a bugler. The dragoons had trumpeters. Drummers and fifers of each regiment formed the field music and marched with the band, when the regiment had a band. The Fourth did not have a band, which was lucky. The Eighth had theirs, and Hannibal claimed that it was a nuisance, always getting in the way of the field music.

The music was under the drum major. He acted as first sergeant and received his orders from the regimental adjutant. He called the roll at music assembly, gave the signals with his staff, and saw