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The Tedium of Camp.
And you, good yeoman, Whose limbs were made in England, show us here The mettle of your pasture; let us swear That you are worth your breeding.

--Henry V.
To really enjoy life in a Camp of Instruction requires a peculiar cast of mind.

It requires a genuine liking for a tread-mill round of merely mechanical duties; it requires a taste for rising in the chill and cheerless dawn, at the unwelcome summons of "reveille," to a long day filled with a tiresome routine of laborious drills alternating with tedious roll-calls, and wearisome parades and inspections; it requires pleased contentment with walks continually cut short by the camp-guard, and with amusements limited to rough horse-play on the parade-ground, and dull games of cards by sputtering candles in the tent.
As these be tastes and preferences notably absent from the mind of the average young man, our volunteers usually regard their experience in Camp of Instruction as among the most unpleasant of their war memories.
These were the trials that tested Harry Glen's resolution sorely.
When he enlisted with the intention of redeeming himself, he naturally expected that the opportunity he desired would be given by a prompt march to the field, and a speedy entrance into an engagement.

He nerved himself strenuously for the dreadful ordeal of battle, but this became a continually receding point.