Part 8
The nights are getting to be uncomfortably cool. My two heavy blankets are not enough to keep me from feeling right chilly some nights. And I will have to draw an overcoat before long—something I have not felt the need of for some time. We went up to the fort today to report to the engineer for fatigue duty, but he was not at home and we didn’t feel we had any call to hang around waiting for him.
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_LXXII_
CAMP NEAR ALEXANDRIA, VA., _October 28, 1862_.
My company went on picket last Saturday. It was a most disagreeable outing. A miserable rain storm came on in the night, and when the boys, after a very tardy relief, dragged themselves back to camp, they were cold, wet, bedraggled and discouraged. The rain held up yesterday forenoon, but the wind kept up in a wild gale. I hardly ever saw such a blow. Some of our tents were blown over. The tent-pins of my tent pulled out and I thought at one time the whole outfit was going sure enough. But we managed to anchor it, and today is one of the most delightful imaginable.
An order was recently issued by the War Department designed to fill up the regular cavalry regiments at the expense of the volunteers. It permits the transfer of ten men from each volunteer company, by re-enlistment for three or five years, or to serve out the unexpired part of their present enlistment. Lots of our boys have been getting sour over some of the conditions here and were more than anxious to try a change. So yesterday ten from this company marched down to the recruiting station at Alexandria and joined the cavalry. When Col. Marston heard of this he was mad as a hornet, and when they shouldered their knapsacks this morning and marched away to their new command, he sent a guard down to arrest and bring them back. But Col. Starr ordered the guard away, telling them they had no business there, and that the men now belonged to the Second U. S. Cavalry. It is really a pretty hard blow to the old company, and makes me feel a little blue and lonesome. The lost men are among the cream of the old company—such men as “Heenan” and Perk. Lane and ’Gene Hazewell and my bunkie Rod. Manning.
We have not a quarter of a regiment to do duty now, and yet we are doing the work of a full regiment. And the people in New Hampshire think we are resting up! Why, I am now, and for some time have been, doing heavy guard duty every other day. There are lots of mighty cross men here, just now, who blame some of the officers for everything that goes wrong, and the dearest wish of many is to get out of the regiment as soon as possible.
I am sure the report that Charlie Smiley is in a hospital near Washington is incorrect. We have heard nothing of it here, and I fear we will never hear him sing those songs of his any more.
I began this letter this morning, and now it is evening. I have written little snatches as I had opportunity through the day. ’Gene Hazewell and one or two more of the “cavalry boys” have just come up visiting. They go over to Washington tomorrow. Col. Marston managed to get some sort of a veto put on any more cavalry enlistment down where our boys went, but some thirty or forty from other companies went off today and found another place where they could enlist, so they beat the old Colonel after all. Everything I can hear the boys talk about now is “_Cavalry_.” Rod. Manning has just come in to bid me good bye. Good old Rod!—I almost wish I was going with him.
There is any quantity of noise about camp, and the new band of the Eleventh Massachusetts is contributing to the general hilarity by putting in some of its loudest work. It is getting awfully cold now—frost last night—and I can hardly hold my pen in my fingers.
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_LXXIII_
CAMP NEAR ALEXANDRIA, VA., _October 30, 1862_.
Five minutes ago I received a letter addressed in your familiar hand. Four minutes and fifty-nine seconds ago I tore open the envelope. I extracted, first, a note, which I supposed you had inclosed from Mary. I opened it. “_Dear Brother_” stared me full in the face. The note surely was not for me, but for brother James—just your carelessness, sending it with the wrong letter. I unfolded your letter, and—what!—“_Dear Brother!_”—there it was again. The whole huge joke was clear. I hope James was not as grievously disappointed when he got my letter as I was when I got his. I return it, unread if not unopened.
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_LXXIV_
MANASSAS, VA., _November 4, 1862_.
We are once more out here at famous old Manassas. We left Alexandria Saturday afternoon, marching eight or nine miles in the direction of Fairfax Court House. Sunday we got in seventeen miles and camped by the side of Bull Run creek. Yesterday forenoon we marched up here—about three miles—and by night had our canvas city of little shelter tents set up and in good running order. Bill Ramsdell and I hitched up together, and we have got as cozy and comfortable a mansion as one could desire. There is any quantity of stuff lying around loose, and we had no difficulty in finding canvas to close up one end of the tent and boards enough to floor it. Then we got a quantity of hay for bedding, and what more could we wish for? We expect our big Sibley tents along soon, but Bill and I are well enough off as we are.
You know the rebel army occupied this place last winter and strongly fortified it. Their fortifications are on every side, very rough, but very strong, and now covered with weeds. But a little ways from our camp, littering the railroad tracks and the ground on either side, is the wreckage of the railroad trains destroyed by Jackson in the raid that culminated in the last Bull Run battle. In some places are great piles of shovel blades, in others carbines—in fact, almost everything in the shape of army supplies and equipments—nothing left but the irons. Near by are the rebel log barracks, which we are tearing down for firewood. We have the entire division, now commanded by Sickles, here at Manassas, with about thirty pieces of artillery. I presume we will stay here some time, although it will depend in a great measure upon the movements of the main army. I see the mail bag has just gone out, so there is no chance for this to go today. I hear, also, that there are lots of apples outside our picket line, and I am going out to see about it.
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_LXXV_
CAMP ON CENTREVILLE HEIGHTS, VA., _Sunday, November 9, 1862_.
You will see we have moved again. We remained at Manassas only two nights, when the Second Regiment was sent over here. Centreville Heights are four or five miles from Manassas, and, like that place, strongly fortified. There are redoubts and rifle pits almost without end, and the rebel barracks form a veritable log city. We relieved the 120th New York, which we found here, and now have the whole thing to ourselves. It has been a busy camp since we arrived, as the approaching winter warns us to prepare for storms. The abandoned rebel camps are a rich quarry of building materials—boards, nails, bricks, &c.—with which we have built a veritable shanty city on the ridge. Bill Ramsdell and I have put together one of the cutest little mansions that ever was. The ground dimensions are about seven feet by six, six feet high at the eaves. The fireplace and door take up the entire front, and the house is tight, snug and warm. The fireplace works to a charm, and there is a delicious sensation of coziness in sitting by your own cheerful fireside. We have an unlimited supply of wood, and tonight will sit and bask and chat and dream. We have a long shelf across the rear end, a mantle-shelf over the fireplace, and tomorrow will put in a bunk, a little table and some stools. Our fireplace is built up of flat rocks, the chimney of bricks, and topped out with a big iron kettle minus a bottom. And our cabin has a good board floor. Now if they will only let us stay here a while and enjoy the fruits of our labors we will be a thousand times repaid. The winter season has fairly set in. Friday we had the first snow of the season and it was bitter cold. I happened to be on guard that day, and I had a pretty bleak time of it. My post was in a redoubt, from which I had the whole country clear to the Blue Ridge spread out before me like a map. The wind whistled and the snow blew, and, crouching under the protecting walls of the work, I tried to extract some comfort from the situation. When I went on at night I decided to have a fire, and I gathered up wood and built a good one in one of the angles of the fort. It was a little irregular for a sentry on post, and still was the right thing under the circumstances, and I got lots of comfort out of it. From my post I could trace the routes I followed on my two pilgrimages to Bull Run.
A long wagon train has come up, going out to McClellan, and six companies are going along with it as a guard. I am glad our company is not in the detail. They are to take four days’ rations. The village of Centreville is close by our camp—a typical southern, village of twenty-five or thirty houses, mostly deserted and all very dilapidated.
It is now evening, and I have been writing in the glow of a good fire. Just a few minutes ago Bill got up and went out of doors. In a few minutes the smoke was pouring into the room like a coalpit. I stood it till I was in danger of choking, then plunged outside just in season to see Bill dodge out of sight up the street, and to find a big pan covering the top of the chimney. When Bill came in I laid it to him and he owned up. He said he tried to peek into the tent, but the smoke was so thick he couldn’t see anything, and he waited until he thought I never would be driven out. Bill is a good deal of a character. He is smart, fine-looking, well-educated, and an adventurer, having spent many years in California. His home is in Milford, and he went to Portsmouth as a lieutenant in the Milford company—and he was the best posted one in the line. When his company was broken up, he was too patriotic to back out, and after looking the ground over, he enlisted as a private in this company.
This very day terminates one-half of my enlistment—have turned the corner and am now headed for home.
Bill wants to go to bed, so good night.
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_LXXVI_
CENTREVILLE HEIGHTS, VA., _November 16, 1862_.
Have had delightful weather the past week, but today it has come off colder and looks as if it was going to snow. I do not care if it does, having a snug, warm house and plenty of firewood. During the week a great many of the boys have visited the Bull Run battlefield. Some Company C boys who went over the first of the week found Frank Robinson’s skeleton. It was fully identified by a peculiar filling of the teeth.
“Curley” [Granville S.] Converse and I took a day off and went over together. That field, where the battle-lines locked horns, was a field of horrors. The hasty and incomplete burials—in many instances no burial at all—with the work of the elements for months, had made a ghastly mess of things. Human skulls rolling about, with fragments of disjointed skeletons here and there. We found the body of one man lying all alone far out in the open field, which had lain undiscovered and undisturbed right where the poor fellow fell and died. There was one of the “missing,” whose friends only know that he was lost in that fight. I could have gathered wagon loads of bullets, shell fragments and other debris. I send one bullet, with fragment of blue cloth attached, that tells its own story. It struck some poor fellow, going right through him, flattening on a bone as it passed and making a hook which tore off a fragment of blouse as it came out. But enough of horrors for one letter.
On our way back to camp “Curley” and I struck it rich. As we crossed Bull Run creek at the stone bridge we noticed, on the flats below, an old sow with a litter of pigs. And as we were studying the situation reinforcements came up—a fellow from some New York regiment. He had his old Belgian rifle with him, I had my six-shooter, and “Curley” had his jackknife. We held a council of war, decided on a plan of operations, and when we got through we had three of those pigs. They were neatly and expeditiously dressed and “Curley” and I headed for camp with a fine supply of pig pork swinging from a pole between us. Bill and I have been living on fresh pork ever since—pork steak, pork chops, pork cutlets, pork chitterlings. And Bill rigged up a wire contraption and roasted one choice cut by hanging before the fire.
Friday night we had quite a flutter in camp in anticipation of an attack. As near as I can find out, some place fifteen or twenty miles from here was threatened by some rebel cavalry sometime or other, and our super-alert officers determined not to be caught napping. So along in the night the men were routed up and ordered to pack up ready to march at a moment’s notice, and to sleep with all their equipments on. Bill and I packed our blankets, but were not foolish enough to get into our harness—time enough for that after there was an alarm. And after a while, having discussed the situation and the probabilities, and feeling the need of our blankets, we pulled them out, made ourselves comfortable, and are still alive to tell the tale.
We have a battery of artillery here with us, two pieces in each of three redoubts. They are now surrounding the redoubts with an abattis of felled trees, the limbs and branches sharpened and pointed outward. It makes a very troublesome thing to climb over, particularly of a dark night.
Bill and I are seriously considering the advisability of enlarging our house. I think it probable we will tackle the job within a few days. We are also planning to take a little trip for a winter supply of walnuts and pork, both of which grow wild and are quite abundant out in the country. If we had a shot gun we could get any quantity of gray squirrels. If we get into any place this winter where we are reasonably sure of stopping, about the first thing I will do will be to send home for a box of good things to eat.
There is a little girl here in Centreville that I have taken quite a fancy to, she looks so much like you. She is about eight years old, and I saw her while on guard duty. She has features like you, hair like yours, and when she smiles her cheeks dimple up just as yours do. Yet she is a little slave girl, just for that drop of negro blood that I would never suspect.
* * * It is evening now, and I have seated myself on the edge of our bunk to finish my letter. Bill is sprawled out beside me, reciting poetry by the yard. We had a dress parade at sunset, Major Bailey in command. He has got a monstrous big overcoat, to match his gloves, hat, and shoulder-straps, and when I first saw him coming I thought it was a woman. I expect to be on guard tomorrow. Our detail for guard duty now is two men a day from each company. As Company I now has only fifteen for duty, this brings us on guard about once a week. I heard somebody in the street say, just now, that Hooker has ordered us to report to him at the front. I am not over-anxious to get out of my comfortable little nest here, but if we are to go we will be delighted to serve again under glorious old Joe Hooker.
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_LXXVII_
CAMP AT WOLF RUN SHOALS, ON OCCOQUAN CREEK, VA., _November 23, 1862_.
I have just finished reading letters from you and Addie that came in this morning. My fingers are so cold I can hardly clutch the pen, and the wind fairly howls as it comes tearing up the gorge. We left our Centreville camp Tuesday and arrived here the next day. Up to yesterday noon it rained without cessation, and as we trudged along through the mud and rain, or shivered in our wet beds with no protection but our little pieces of shelter-tent, you may be sure we thought of the happy homes we had left at Centreville. This is one of the wildest places I have seen in Virginia, the Occoquan rushing down through gloomy gorges clothed in a dense vegetation. The river here is about as wide as Elm street, and only to be crossed at fords, and at this season of the year wading rivers has its disagreeable features. On the crest commanding this ford the rebels had two forts, and along the hillside, between the forts and river, a line of rifle pits. Our regiment is camped on the hillside, between the forts and pits, and the declivity above us is so steep as to be almost a precipice.
Our entire division is now assembled in this immediate vicinity. The wind blows bitter cold today, and there is a good fire going in front of every tent. Bill is sitting on a half-barrel, outside the tent, writing letters, and I am on my blankets at the portal. Every few minutes we have to stop and thaw out at the fire.
Bill and I have really been living pretty high on this expedition. We lugged soft bread enough in our haversacks and knapsacks so that we still have a good supply left. The day we got here I waded back across the creek and went on an exploring expedition. Away back in the woods I came upon a little clearing. In it was an abandoned cabin, and it was a picture of desolation. I imagine there was a tragedy here. There were the ruins of a garden patch which evidently had been raided and plundered by vagabonds like myself. But they had not made a clean harvesting, and ploughing around with a sharp stick I managed to turn up quite a quantity of excellent potatoes. I also found some turnips and onions, and some fairly good apples, and came back to camp loaded with truck. We had fried chicken yesterday morning. Bill borrowed my revolver, went off on a scout, and came back with the bird. I asked him if he shot it or bought it; I suspect the latter. There are quantities of walnuts, butternuts and persimmons about here. These last are a wild plum, growing on a tree looking much like an apple tree. They are awfully puckery when green, and sickish sweet when dead ripe.
Two days before we left Centreville Johnny Ogden’s wife came out to see him. It is no place for a woman, and my opinion is she had better have stayed at home. She has had a chance to see some of the rough side of campaigning. All that could be done has been done for her convenience and comfort. She has a fully inclosed tent here, thickly bedded with hay—the best quarters in camp.
I have some hopes now that this awful war will be over before many months. We all have confidence in Burnside and are hoping he will lead us to victory. “Officers’ Call” has just sounded, and I am afraid it means orders to march.
P. S.—It was an inspection, and we are now ordered to carry an extra pair of shoes in our knapsacks. That looks like some traveling. One pair of my size will be about all I will care to tote.
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_LXXVIII_
CAMP OPPOSITE FREDERICKSBURG, VA., _Sunday, November 30, 1862_.
This is the last day of Fall. Tomorrow commences the Winter campaign, which, if carried on, will necessarily be one of privations and hardships. We arrived in our present position day before yesterday, and are encamped, with the rest of the Army of the Potomac, opposite the ancient city of Fredericksburg, which, with the rest of the territory on that side of the Rappahannock, is held by the rebel army. I can distinctly see their camps and camp fires from where I am sitting. All the New Hampshire troops now in Virginia are camped right here within a distance of a mile or two and I have met hundreds of old friends and acquaintances. I have seen James several times, and we had a hearty laugh over that mix up you made in our letters.
I am going over to the cavalry, right away, to get something to eat. The lean years follow the fat years and the famine follows the feast—and I am almost starved. Have been on short allowance for three days. Sutlers are simply giving their goods away—butter, 50 cents; cheese, 45 cents; tobacco, $2.00 a pound—and everything else in proportion. We have not had a mail for several days, but Bill Pendleton, our mail agent, tells me there will be one tonight.
Just this moment I have heard something that encourages me to have hopes that I may see you before long. Johnny Ogden told Bill Ramsdell that Colonel Marston told his (Johnny’s) wife that the time was approaching when the question of this regiment going home would be presented in such a manner that it could not be refused. He thought, though, we would stay and see the Fredericksburg affair through.
We have just got an order for inspection this afternoon, and the men are sitting around on the ground taking their guns to pieces to clean them. I might as well get busy with the rest.
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_LXXIX_
CAMP IN THE MUD, OPPOSITE FREDERICKSBURG, VA., _December 5, 1862_.
I intend only to _begin_ this letter today, as I cannot hold on long in my present position—the ground for a seat, my knees for a writing desk, and my fingers blue with cold. A cold, drizzling rain set in today, which drove me under my shelter tent. Every little while a drop will splash down over my paper, and I cannot straighten up without hitting my head and shoulders on the canvas. Sally Shepherd’s brother—“Doctor”—was over here yesterday from the Ninth Regiment.
_Saturday, December 6._