When these two companies paraded, they were followed by an admiring train of small boys all day long, if the boys could get out of school.

I remember on one occasion there was a great rivalry between the companies, and one of them got the famous Brigade Band from Boston, and the other an equally famous band, called the Boston Brass Band, in which Edward Kendall, the great musician, was the player on the bugle.

A very great day indeed was the muster-day, when sometimes an entire brigade would be called out for drill.

These muster-days happened three or four times in my boyhood in Concord.
But the great day of all was what was called "Cornwallis," which was the anniversary of the capture of Cornwallis at Yorktown.

There were organized companies in uniform representing the British army and an equally large number of volunteers, generally in old-fashioned dress, and with such muskets and other accoutrements as they could pick up, who represented the American army.