In Washington. Here all arrangements connected with army
matters are perfect. An efficient military police or patrol arrests all men and
officers not authorized to be absent from their regiments, and either returns
them to their regiments or puts them under guard and gives notice of their
place. A good eating-house feeds free of expense and sleeps all lost and
stray soldiers. An establishment furnishes quartermasters of regiments with cooked
rations at all times; fine hospitals, easily accessible, are numerous. The
people fed and complimented our men (chiefly
the middling and mechanical or laboring classes) in a way that was
very gratifying. We felt proud of our drill and healthy brown faces. The
comparison with the new, green recruits pouring in was much to our advantage.
Altogether Washington was a happiness to the Twenty-third.
SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and
Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 330
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