Part 7
We are hard at work fortifying our lines. The camp of our regiment is immediately to the rear of a redoubt where twenty or thirty cannon will be mounted. Two eight-inch howitzers are now in position. We are building rifle pits from the right of this redoubt down to a pond [Rowland’s mill pond.] When you know that our intrenchments form a line several miles in length, you will get some idea of the magnitude of our works. This is a very interesting locality, plastered all over with historic associations. President Wm. Henry Harrison was born near here, and down by the river there is a stately mansion built long before the Revolution of bricks brought from England. In the family burying ground I saw stones dating back over two hundred years.
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_LXII_
CAMP NEAR HARRISON’S LANDING, VA., _July 19, 1862_.
Rod. Manning, my present tentmate, and I got tired of lying in the mud, so we sallied over to where they were tearing down a house, about three-quarters of a mile from here, and managed to gather in a quantity of the old clapboards. With these spread on a framework of poles, we have a bunk or platform high enough to keep us out of the water when it rains, and making a very fair seat when, for instance, I want to write a letter to you. This is not the only public improvement. We have built a bough arbor over the front of our tent to give some shade from the scorching sun, and are thinking of a bough screen at the back end of the tent to keep out the wind and rain.
Our rifle pits are finished, so we will have no duty except guard duty and a short drill each day. I hope the North will send reinforcements on quickly, for I want to see our army advance again on Richmond and end the war. This is a good place to rest in for a few weeks, where we can have our supplies landed at our very door from transports.
In the retreat from Fair Oaks our company lost ten men taken prisoners. We have a pitifully short line now, compared with what it was when we left Manchester.
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_LXIII_
CAMP NEAR HARRISON’S LANDING, VA., _July 23, 1862_.
By the papers I see that a hospital is to be established in New Hampshire for the care of sick and wounded soldiers from our state. That is all very nice, but, as much as I would like to see home, I hope I will never have any use for that establishment. I have been out today to a review by Gen. McClellan and am pretty well fagged out. Now I will try to answer some of your questions. There are not many houses about here—it’s right out in the country. Such houses as there are are mostly occupied as hospitals. Those outside our lines that would interfere with the range of our guns have been torn down. Notwithstanding the ravages of war, it is a most beautiful region. The busy place now is down at the landing, where the negroes are kept busy unloading supplies from the transports. Our food, for a few days, has not been quite up to the New Hampshire standard. Our meat has been “smoked sides”—a very poor quality of bacon. I have almost forgotten how a real first-class meal does taste.
“Those curls?” Well, I came to the conclusion, yesterday, that inasmuch as I had lost my comb and didn’t know where I could get another, heroic measures were necessary. So I hunted up a camp barber and had my hair cut and my head shaved, sandpapered and varnished. I was looking at the little round picture yesterday, and a little end of black hair that straggled out between the case and the picture reminded me that you placed it there the night I told you I had enlisted. It was braided and tied just as you tied it that evening. We had but little idea then that I was to be so long away.
_Thursday, July 24._
It is about three o’clock in the afternoon, and I have just finished my dinner. I looked over the miserable piece of miserable bacon that the company cook handed out to me, and then started off into the wilderness, and when I came back I had gathered in a pint of blackberries, which helped out very materially.
General McClellan was around today looking over the intrenchments. One of his staff had quite a little misadventure down by the pond, where a lot of us were having a swim. A small canal, or sluice, runs out of this pond, which is crossed by a frail plank bridge. The General and staff were crossing this bridge, when a plank gave way and down into the ditch went one horse and rider. The officer managed to crawl out—and a very draggled specimen he was—but it took the united efforts of the whole party to get that horse onto terra firma.
I received a letter from Roger [Woodbury] yesterday. He was of opinion that the Third Regiment would come up to the Peninsula, as troops were being sent from that Department to reinforce McClellan. I saw Hen. [W. H. D.] Cochrane yesterday, and he told me the Third and Fourth were actually embarked for here.
_Saturday, July 26._
Yesterday morning the Second Regiment went out on picket and got in at noon today. I had the most enjoyable picket tour in all my experience. We were out about two miles from camp, and as there were cavalry vedettes and patrols still farther out, we had no fears of a surprise attack. There were so many of us that no man had to stand a post more than one one-hour turn. The rest of the time we were at liberty to roam, pick blackberries and gather green apples and have a good time generally. No camp ever had a more perfect picket protection than was given by that swarm of foragers and sight-seeing scouts. Close to headquarters was a house—a well-shaded, cozy southern home. The owner and his two sons are in the rebel army, but his wife and daughter remain and have a safeguard of our soldiers. And you never saw such a swarm of little negroes as there was about that place.
Today has been feast day—the greatest dinner within the memory of man—a genuine “biled dish”—potatoes, beets, onions, cabbage and boiled salt pork. And just now Rod. Manning is frying some apples that are going to make a pretty good dish, if I can judge by the smell.
_Sunday, July 27._
Hen. Everett has just been over here, and we had a good long chat about times in the old printing office in Manchester. The sun is coming up in a way that promises a hot day—and a hot day down here _is_ hot.
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_LXIV_
CAMP NEAR HARRISON’S LANDING, VA., _August 3, 1862_.
Our Division went out, last night, on a reconnoissance most up to Malvern Hill, where the last great battle was fought on the retreat. We went on through woods, over stumps, wading brooks and bog holes, until we were pretty near the enemy’s lines, when Gen. Hooker learned that Kearney had accomplished what we had set out to do, and we about-faced and blundered back to camp through the darkness. It was almost three o’clock when we got back, and I was tired through and through. [The expedition was really misled by a guide.]
There has been some little stir here for a few days in relation to transfers to the gunboats, as twenty-five or thirty seamen are wanted from each regiment. Those who have been to sea and want to go again have passed in their names, but we do not know as yet who, if any, have been accepted. Gunnison sent in his with the rest.
The company cooks are preparing a great dinner—soup, with potatoes, onions and cabbages in it. It certainly is a feast to men who have learned not to be surprised if they get nothing but hard bread, or even nothing at all. I have just heard that we are to go out tonight on another reconnoissance. I hope not. I had much rather lie comfortably in my tent than go on any such tramp as we had last night.
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_LXV_
CAMP NEAR HARRISON’S LANDING, VA., _August 8, 1862_.
Since I last wrote we have been on quite a little expedition to Malvern Hill and back. We left our camp Monday afternoon, just before sunset. It was a beautiful evening, and as we followed a fairly good road we trudged along very comfortably until about midnight, when we halted and slept on our arms until daybreak. Bright and early we resumed our march. The enemy’s cavalry pickets were struck within a few hundred yards and our cavalry sent them flying, after the exchange of a few shots. When we came out into a large field I saw that we were on the ground where we fought on the second day of the retreat from Fair Oaks—[at Charles City Cross Roads.] Then we swung to the left and pushed down the road to Malvern Hill—the same we had followed once before. When we came out into the great open area around Malvern Hill, one of our light batteries was already engaged with a rebel battery of four pieces. These guns naturally paid some attention to us, but with the exception of one shell which burst in our ranks before we filed out of the road and did some damage, not a man was hit in the Second Regiment. We had, really, remarkable luck, as they did some very good shooting and burst a number of shells and case-shots in our very faces. The Eleventh Massachusetts had two men killed and eight wounded by one shot. After half or three-quarters of an hour of this, the rebel battery limbered up and struck up the river road for Richmond, and our cavalry went after them. We gathered in quite a bunch of prisoners, singly and in little squads—men scattered around on outpost and picket duty, who came up out of the woods to see what the trouble was—and found out. One of these was particularly low-down mean and “sassy,” and he and “Heenan” had it out. After looking us over he said there was one thing he cussed himself for, and that was that he looked so much like a Yankee. Then Nich., leaning on his gun took Johnny in hand. He looked him up and down, with _such_ a contemptuous sneer on his face. He commented on his general disreputable appearance, and to wind up with, set the fellow fairly wild with rage, by leaning forward and confidentially asking him how much nigger blood there was in him.
The rebel battery was posted under big trees in the grounds of the old mansion house on the hill. When we advanced to the position we found three or four wounded and one dead batteryman that the rebels had left behind. The dead man had been hit on the head by a piece of shell, and lay all curled up, but still tightly clasping in his hands the shell he was carrying to his gun.
We occupied the hill until Thursday morning, when we leisurely returned to camp. It was really a delightful outing. When we returned, my haversack was bulging with the fruits of my foraging—apples and plums, fresh pork, hog’s liver, and one good fat chicken.
Perk. Lane and four others of our boys who were taken prisoners have returned. They have had a pretty hard time of it, but have many amusing stories to tell of prison life in Richmond. Provisions there are very high indeed—molasses six dollars a gallon, flour twenty-five dollars a barrel, bread twenty-five cents a loaf, and everything else in proportion. We are beginning to get a little soft bread now ourselves. Yesterday we had a whole loaf to a man, and we have had one meal before that.
_Sunday, August 10._
I hear from home that a great many of the white-livered gentry swear they will not submit to being drafted. Then shoot them—that’s my advice—and the Second Regiment would like the job. I can hardly write at all, the flies bother me so. They are here in millions, and nobody can take any comfort, for the torments.
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_LXVI_
CAMP NEAR ALEXANDRIA, VA., _September 6, 1862_.
After being here two days I have managed to get the materials together for writing a letter. We have had a mighty strenuous time since we marched away from Harrison’s Landing [August 15]—in two hard battles, to say nothing of hard marches and transportation by sea and land, on crowded steamers and rattletrap freight cars. Marching to Yorktown, we were there loaded onto transports. No sooner were we fairly landed in Alexandria than we were toted out to Warrenton Junction and dumped, late at night, in the fields by the side of the road. Here, we were told, we would have a chance to rest, and we did, just one day and one night. That night Stonewall Jackson showed up at Manassas, directly in our rear, and we were sent after him. We came upon him at Kettle Run and had a rattling smart fight, with several hundred men killed and wounded on both sides. Two days later we were engaged in the second great battle of Bull Run. Our brigade here showed its mettle as it never had before, and especially the Second Regiment. We were ordered to advance through woods, without any supports, and attack the rebels behind a railroad grade five or six feet high. We went in. They gave us a volley, and we charged them, the Second going over the work with a yell and giving those fellows the surprise of their life. It was savage work for a short time, but we were determined to drive them, and we did. Then we went for the second line, a few rods further on, and set them agoing. And pretty soon it became apparent that what there was left of us were being surrounded. Then we got out—we had to or be taken prisoners. We lost 147 men out of a little over 300 that went in, and most of these within a very few minutes. Gen. Grover said it was the greatest bayonet charge of the war.
I got my first man as I went over the bank. I dashed round a big bush in the very edge of the grade right onto a rebel, who threw his gun up aiming at somebody to my right. He never fired, for I gave it to him from the hip and doubtless saved the life of some Second Regiment man—I’ll never know who. And just as I was starting on my return trip something tickled my upper lip and the roots of my nose, and for a while I was doing the ensanguined act on the smallest capital of any man in the regiment. It was a pretty close shave, all the same. One inch further, in the wrong direction, would have spoiled my beauty, and three inches would have spoiled me.
The actual fate of a lot of the boys is still in doubt. Charlie Smiley is missing, and nobody can tell anything about him. [He never came back.] Frank Robinson was shot through the bowels, near the railroad bank. Captain Carr told me, a few minutes later, that he had to leave him there, dying.
Father is over in Washington, but so far has been unable to get a pass to come over here, while I could not get a pass to go over there. It will be pretty tough if, after all I have gone through, and he so near, they do not give me a chance to see him.
I do not know how soon we may be on the move, but hope not for some time, for really the regiment is in pretty bad shape. The latest camp rumor is that we are going down to Budd’s Ferry, which would be very nice, but is entirely improbable. But we certainly should have a chance to get our breath, at least. We have been in ten fights, and in some of them have borne the brunt. There are regiments here that have never been in any fight at all, but have laid back here in comfort, while others were getting the rough of it.
It is a beautiful day, and I am sitting in front of my tent, upon a pile of corn husks, the Potomac at my feet and the cities of Alexandria and Washington up there to the north.
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_LXVII_
CAMP NEAR ALEXANDRIA, VA., _September 14, 1862_.
It bids fair to be a very hot day, so I am starting my letter just as early as I can get down to business. Father got over the river three or four days ago. Dan. Clark [U. S. Senator] took it up with the War Department and Gerry got his pass. He is going to stay several days longer, and you can imagine how much I am enjoying his visit. He is spending a good part of his time visiting the hospitals and hunting out and cheering up the New Hampshire men he finds there. He doesn’t say anything, but I have my doubts whether the lodgings here are fully up to his standard of comfort. Rod. Manning and I, in our capacity as chambermaids, make up the best bed we can with the materials at our command, and give E. G. the middle berth, with us under the eaves. But the ground is hard, and a knapsack or pair of shoes is not a real good pillow until you get fitted to them. Our guest grunts a good deal and turns over pretty often, and this morning I woke up before daylight and found him outside, sitting on a cracker box, over a little campfire he had nursed into action.
Since my last letter we have moved our camp about two miles, over to Fairfax Seminary, a brick building now occupied as a hospital, on the heights overlooking the city of Alexandria. Our camp is right to the rear of Fort Ward.
Did you ever know Joe Locke?—[Joseph L., a Manchester boy.] I saw him yesterday. He is in the Thirty-third Massachusetts, which is temporarily assigned to this brigade.
Father brought up from the city, yesterday, a big bag of flour, butter, and about all the other “fixings” he could lug, and there will be high living, for a time, in our tent. The laugh was on him, good and hard, the day we moved camp. He started out in the morning from our old camp, to visit the hospitals. When we arrived here he was at the Seminary, only a few rods away. He watched us come and pitch our tents, without any idea that it was the Second Regiment, and when he got ready to go he tramped back to the old camp, only to find himself among strangers. Fortunately, some one was able to direct him, and in due time he was back here with four extra miles of travel to his credit.
Those boxes that the boys sent for from Harrison’s Landing came along yesterday, but a great deal of the stuff had been so long on the way that it had spoiled. When I see these new regiments coming out now I remind myself that when my term of service is ended they will be only half way through. But I hope that with the new calls for troops there will be enough to finish this up in so short a time that we can all be home before long.
Two or three of the boys supposed to have been killed at Bull Run have turned up in the hospitals, but poor Frank Robinson is undoubtedly dead.
What company is your brother in? I will hunt him up if I can get to his regiment after it arrives. [James K. Lane, Company G, Eleventh N. H.]
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_LXVIII_
CAMP NEAR ALEXANDRIA, VA., _Sunday Evening, September 21, 1862_.
I have been down to the Eleventh Regiment to see James [K. Lane, “the girl’s” brother] and other boys there. I went into the camp, stopped a while at one of the Manchester companies, where I found lots of fellows that I knew, and then started for Co. G to find James, when he bore down on me with all sail spread. I knew him, and he knew me, at sight, and we were just as well acquainted after we had shaken hands as though we had known each other for years.
We are doing a little digging now—just enough to keep our hand in—on rifle pits between Forts Worth and Ward. Our knapsacks, which were loaded onto barges when we left Harrison’s Landing, got here only two days ago. I had begun to think they were gone for good, and was ready to bewail the loss of all my valuables, when they turned up safe and sound.
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_LXIX_
CAMP NEAR ALEXANDRIA, VA., _September 29, 1862_.
It is now almost nine o’clock in the evening, and I have had a pretty busy day. And tomorrow I go on picket, which will spoil two days more. So I guess I had better write tonight. This morning, as soon as I had eaten my breakfast, I started off for the Tenth Regiment. Met lots of old Manchester acquaintances, and Billy Cochrane, Ichabod, Sargent Bartlett and I got together and had a real Excelsior Literary Society reunion. On my way back I called in at the Eleventh Regiment camp, and James walked a part of the way home with me.
Tonight “Bobby” [Albert B.] Robinson, who was taken prisoner at the first Bull Run, got back to the company and the reception he got from those of us who are still left baffles all description. A camp story is going the rounds that Gov. Berry is trying to have this regiment sent to New Hampshire to recruit.
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_LXX_
CAMP NEAR ALEXANDRIA, VA., _Sunday, October 12, 1862_.
Have just got back from the Thirteenth Regiment, where I found not a single man I knew, so I got a good long tramp for nothing. Got a mosaic letter from sister Addie Friday, made up of contributions from half a dozen of her friends. Have just had a pocket tourniquet given me, a little instrument to stop the flow of blood from a wounded arm or leg. I don’t see how it could be of much use in stopping a bloody nose. Charlie Smiley has never been heard from and doubtless never will.
So far as quarters are concerned, we are mighty comfortably situated just now. We have folded up our pieces of shelter tent and in their place pitched a camp of old-fashioned army “Sibleys.” My tent-crew comprises seven good fellows. Each man has built himself a bunk, and still there is room to spare. The heavy tent-cloth keeps out the rain, so we have a perfectly dry nest. But there are persistent rumors that we will not remain here much longer.
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_LXXI_
CAMP NEAR ALEXANDRIA, VA., _October 19, 1862_.
The Eleventh Regiment is now in the vicinity of Harper’s Ferry. Simons, who used to keep the bookstore, was down here yesterday, hunting up stragglers from the division. He thought that by this time the regiment might be over in Virginia.