any one should do this but me)--but passages from the Bible,
expounding them, prayer at the bedside, explanations of doctrine, &c.
(I think I see my friends smiling at this confession, but I was never
more in earnest in my life.) In camp and everywhere, I was in the
habit of reading or giving recitations to the men. They were very fond
of it, and liked declamatory poetical pieces. We would gather in a
large group by ourselves, after supper, and spend the time in such
readings, or in talking, and occasionally by an amusing game called
the game of twenty questions.


A NEW ARMY ORGANIZATION FIT FOR AMERICA

It is plain to me out of the events of the war, north and south, and
out of all considerations, that the current military theory, practice,
rules and organization, (adopted from Europe from the feudal
institutes, with, of course, the "modern improvements," largely from
the French,) though tacitly follow'd, and believ'd in by the officers
generally, are not at all consonant with the United States, nor our
people, nor our days. What it will be I know not--but I know that as
entire an abnegation of the present military system, and the naval
too, and a building up from radically different root-bases and centres
appropriate to us, must eventually result, as that our political
system has resulted and become establish'd, different from feudal
Europe, and built up on itself from original, perennial, democratic
premises. We have undoubtedly in the United States the greatest
military power--an exhaustless, intelligent, brave and reliable rank
and file--in the world, any land, perhaps all lands. The problem is to
organize this in the manner fully appropriate to it, to the principles
of the republic, and to get the best service out of it. In the present