Promptly at nine, a cannon boomed, off by the Capitol. In a few minutes, the Hazards heard a distant brass band playing "When Johnny Comes Marching Home." Then they heard unseen thousands cheering parade units beyond the jog in the avenue. Soon the first marchers rounded the corner by the Treasury, and everyone leaped up to clap and hurrah.
Scholarly General George Meade led the parade, riding to the presidential pavilion amid an ovation. Small boys hanging from the trees behind it leaned out to clap and nearly fell. Meade saluted the dignitaries with his saber — neither Grant nor Johnson had yet arrived — then handed his horse to a corporal and went to sit with them.
Women cheered, men wept openly, a chorus of young schoolgirls sang and showered the street with bouquets and nosegays. The sun struck white fire from the alabaster of the Capitol dome as General Wesley Merritt led the Third Division into sight. The regular commander, Little Phil Sheridan, was already en route to duty on the Gulf of Mexico. When the Third appeared, even William, who was afflicted with adolescent disdain for nearly everything, jumped up and whistled and clapped.
Sixteen abreast in a column of platoons, sabers flashing in the sunshine, Sheridan's cavalry passed. The troopers had a trim, freshly barbered look and showed few signs of war-weariness. Many of them had stuck small bunches of daisies or violets into the muzzles of the carbines carried behind them on shoulder slings.
Each rank dipped its steel to the Chief Executive, who had finally entered the pavilion with General Grant, looking apologetic. George heard a woman several rows behind wonder aloud whether Johnson was already drunk.
Dust clouds rose. The smell of horse droppings ripened. Then, from Fifteenth Street, George heard a chant. "Custer! Custer! Custer! ..."
And there he came, on his fine high-stepping bay, Don Juan: the "Boy General" — shoulder-length ringlets, yellow with a reddish patina, flushed face, scarlet neckerchief, golden spurs, broad-brimmed hat doffed to acknowledge the chanting of his name.