We formed along one side of the room; the guards halted at the head of
the stairs; Ross walked down in front and counted the files, closely
followed by his Irish aid, with his gun-barrel cane raised ready for use
upon any one who should arouse his ruffianly ire. Breaking ranks we
returned to our places, and sat around in moody silence for three hours.
We had eaten nothing since the previous noon. Rising hungry, our hunger
seemed to increase in arithmetical ratio with every quarter of an hour.

These times afforded an illustration of the thorough subjection of man to
the tyrant Stomach. A more irritable lot of individuals could scarcely
be found outside of a menagerie than these men during the hours waiting
for rations. "Crosser than, two sticks" utterly failed as a comparison.
They were crosser than the lines of a check apron. Many could have given
odds to the traditional bear with a sore head, and run out of the game
fifty points ahead of him. It was astonishingly easy to get up a fight
at these times. There was no need of going a step out of the way to
search for it, as one could have a full fledged article of overwhelming
size on his hands at any instant, by a trifling indiscretion of speech or
manner. All the old irritating flings between the cavalry, the artillery
and the infantry, the older "first-call" men, and the later or
"Three-Hundred-Dollar-men," as they were derisively dubbed, between the
different corps of the Army of the Potomac, between men of different
States, and lastly between the adherents and opponents of McClellan, came
to the lips and were answered by a blow with the fist, when a ring would
be formed around the combatants by a crowd, which would encourage them
with yells to do their best. In a few minutes one of the parties to the
fistic debate, who found the point raised by him not well taken, would
retire to the sink to wash the blood from his battered face, and the rest
would resume their seats and glower at space until some fresh excitement
roused them. For the last hour or so of these long waits hardly a word