I missed the white stripe of the infantry, and the yellow of the cavalry.

The shoulder-straps all had gold eagles or leaves on them, instead of the Captains' or Lieutenants' bars.

Many of the Staff officers wore civilians' clothes, which distressed me much, and I used to tell them that if I were Secretary of War they would not be permitted to go about in black alpaca coats and cinnamon-brown trousers.
"What would you have us do ?" said General Weeks.
"Wear white duck and brass buttons," I replied.
"Fol-de-rol!" said the fine-looking and erect Chief Quartermaster; "you would have us be as vain as we were when we were Lieutenants ?" "You can afford to be," I answered; for, even with his threescore years, he had retained the lines of youth, and was, in my opinion, the finest looking man in the Staff of the Army.
But all my reproaches and all my diplomacy were of no avail in reforming the Staff.

Evidently comfort and not looks was their motto.
One day, I accidentally caught a side view of myself in a long mirror (long mirrors had not been very plentiful on the frontier), and was appalled by the fact that my own lines corresponded but too well, alas! with those of the Staff.

Ah, me! were the days, then, of Lieutenants forever past and gone?
The days of suppleness and youth, the careless gay days, when there was no thought for the future, no anxiety about education, when the day began with a wild dash across country and ended with a dinner and dance---were they over, then, for us all?
Major Burbank's battery of light artillery came over and enlivened the quiet of our post occasionally with their brilliant red color.