It was one of our great inconveniences that the supply of the authorized Tactics was soon exhausted, and it was difficult to get the means of instruction in the company schools.

An abridgment was made and published in a very few days by Thomas Worthington, a graduate of West Point in one of the earliest classes,--of 1827, I think,--a son of one of the first governors of Ohio.

This eccentric officer had served in the regular army and in the Mexican War, and was full of ideas, but was of so irascible and impetuous a temper that he was always in collision with the powers that be, and spoiled his own usefulness.

He was employed to furnish water to the camp by contract, and whilst he ruined himself in his efforts to do it well, he was in perpetual conflict with the troops, who capsized his carts, emptied his barrels, and made life a burden to him.

The quarrel was based on his taking the water from the river just opposite the camp, though there was a slaughter-house some distance above.