While the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry was stationed in Tennessee guarding the Elk River, Chaplain Alonzo Quint decided to request a three-day pass to visit Chattanooga."The colonel signs his approval. You want to take this paper yourself to higher quarters, instead of waiting for the slow routine. So the colonel signs a special permission for your to do so. The quarters are at Tullahoma, and to get there, the adjutant furnishes you, by the colonel's direction, with a written document to that effect; and for transportation, the quartermaster gives you another paper, also by the colonel's order. And thus you are empowered to go seven miles.
"At the railway you catch a train. The military conductor examines your military pass, and keeps it when used. The civilian conductor takes your transportation paper. You get to Tullahoma, and go to brigade headquarters, and, if you are as fortunate as I was, find our good Brigadier-General Ruger, just ready for breakfast, and he invites you to breakfast (not officially, you know, but friendly), and you get a captial breakfast. You don't hint at anything about business at meal time; it 'isn't the thing, you know.' But after breakfast you give your application to the general's assistant adjutant-general, with your written permission to come yourself; and he asks the general, and the general signs it, and the clerk makes a minute of it, and the A.A.G. gives you written permission to take it to the general of the division. You go there and hand over both papers, and the A.A.G. gives you a new written permission to take it to corps headquarters. There the A.A.G. goes through similar processes,-- clerk and all,--and you get a new document empowering you to go as you asked...
"Then you go to the post quartermaster's to get a transportation paper; he is gone to Nashville, and his clerk is gone to dinner; but when he comes back you have to go to the colonel commanding the post, and he approves (after seeing your last paper). and you go back and the clerk writes out the transportation pass, and you hurry to the cars while it is raining furiously."
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