Our array and our step connect us. We move as one man. A
man made up of a thousand members and each member a man is a grand
creature,--particularly when you consider that he is self-made. And the
object of this self-made giant, men-man, is to destroy another like
himself, or the separate pigmy members of another such giant. We have
failed to put ourselves--heads, arms, legs, and wills--together as a
unit for any purpose so thoroughly as to snuff out a similar unit. Up to
1861, it seems that the business of war compacts men best.
Well, the Seventh, a compact projectile, was now flinging itself along
the road to Washington. Just a month ago, "in such a night as this,"
we made our first promenade through the enemy's country. The moon of
Annapolis,--why should we not have our ominous moon, as those other
fellows had their sun of Austerlitz?--the moon of Annapolis shone over
us. No epithets are too fine or too complimentary for such a luminary,
and there was no dust under her rays.
So we pegged along to Washington and across Washington,--which at that
point consists of Willard's Hotel, few other buildings being in sight.
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