Sketches of the campaign in northern Mexico : in eighteen hundred forty-six and seven / by an officer of the First Regiment of Ohio volunteers.

20 CAMiBP WASHINGTON.
Camp Washington from all quarters of the State. They were
chiefly from the rural districts, where the volunteers had followed those manly and laborious avocations that trained them
admirably for the fatigues of war. But every trade and profession was represented in the ranks, so that it was no difficult
matter, throughout the campaign, to obtain, upon call, a corps
of skillful laborers in any branch of industry. There were
workers in metal, wood and leather,-men who could make
clothes, harness, wagons, mills, bridges, forts, laws, and pills;
all of whom, of course, knew how to make a ch/arge. Several
more companies than were necessary to fill the requisition,
came to the rendezvous, and those last to arrive were sent
home; not, however, without much clamor and dissatisfaction. But in the following year (1847) some new battalions
were raised in Ohio, thus affoibrding the disappointed fire-eaters
the desired opportunity of " seeing the elephant," or of "' reveling in the Halls of the Montezumas-" as the phrase went.
Governor Bartley having divided the thirty companies retained at the camp into three regiments, the officers immediately set about completing their organization by the election
of field-officers. Though they were naturally desirous of
promoting some of their own numbers, yet two of the reginents very disinterestedly conferred their colonelcys upon
gentlemen who had not been connected with the volunteers,
with a view of securing the benefits of their previous military experience. And here it may be remarked, that the
company officers-who were the electors of the regimental
officers-had themselves been previously chosen from the
ranks, after having been sworn in as privates. Such, at least,