The great majority of the men when the regiment disbanded took up the business of their lives where they had dropped it a few months previously, and these men merely tried to help me or help one another as the occasion arose; no man ever had more cause to be proud of his regiment than I had of mine, both in war and in peace.

But there was a minority among them who in certain ways were unsuited for a life of peaceful regularity, although often enough they had been first-class soldiers.
It was from these men that letters came with a stereotyped opening which always caused my heart to sink--"Dear Colonel: I write you because I am in trouble." The trouble might take almost any form.

One correspondent continued: "I did not take the horse, but they say I did." Another complained that his mother-in-law had put him in jail for bigamy.

In the case of another the incident was more markworthy.

I will call him Gritto.