the delightful surroundings and conditions under which I am working.
Here is the picture: A big tent—the Quartermaster’s—overlooking from
its back a railroad cut twenty-five or thirty feet deep; an enormous
oak tree deeply shading a large space, with a delicious breeze
rustling its branches; several of the boys sitting around reading
the newspapers, chatting, and looking down upon the numerous trains
that pass below; and your own correspondent, with a big pile of army
overcoats for a backrest.
———————
_XXVI_
CAMP UNION,
BLADENSBURG, MD., _Oct. 21, 1861_.
We are having some of the worst weather the almanac can dish out to
us, and the hospital is full of sick men, some seriously ill. I have,
myself, been off duty for several days, but am now on deck again all
right. It is surprisingly cold, and tents are not the warmest sleeping
apartments in the world. I hope they will take us off down south before
long or give us good barracks.
I had a letter from my uncle Nathaniel the other day. [Nathaniel
Columbus Knowlton of New London.] He wrote that after he went back
from Boston, where he went to see me off, a girl came to my father’s
house, whom they introduced as Miss Lane, and who seemed to be very
well acquainted. About a month after, Addie told him who you was. He
approves.
The two aunts you met at my house are all right. Aunt Polly is the
wife of my father’s eldest brother, Joshua. Aunt Olivia was reared
down south, in a Catholic seminary at Charleston, South Carolina. Her
father, Captain Bailey, was an old time sea captain. Until recently she
has been very decided in her southern predilections. But a summer spent
in Charleston two years ago changed her sentiment very radically. Her
husband—my uncle William—is in the Massachusetts Eighteenth, which is
now at Baltimore.
There is quite a little force of cavalry here with us now. They make a
brave show in their drilling. Gen. Hooker, who commanded this brigade,
now has a division, and Col. Cowdin, of the First Massachusetts,
commands the brigade. I believe we shall move from here before long.
The boys are getting impatient, and will be very discontented if they
hold us here much longer.
You write me of your fingers being cold. If you could only know
how cold I am this very minute, you would realize the pleasures of
letter-writing in camp. It is a cold day, and I am writing in a wide
open tent, which is just the same as out of doors. But we have lots
of good times, notwithstanding the cold; and when we get around the
campfires at night, we talk of home and the jolly times we will have
when we get back to Manchester.
———————
_XXVII_
HILL TOP, ST. CHARLES COUNTY, MD.,
_October 28, 1861_.
You will take note that we have changed our location at last. We are
now forty or fifty miles below Washington, on the Potomac river, below
Budd’s Point. The other side of the river is lined with rebel batteries
for a distance of ten miles, up and down, and we are here with ten or
twelve thousand men to watch them. We have cavalry and artillery with
us. With our regiment is Doubleday’s battery of 12- and 32-pounders.
Most of the Fort Sumter men are in this battery. We left Bladensburg
Thursday and got here last night—a march of four days. As we were in
heavy marching order, all our earthly possessions strapped or hung to
us in some way, you can be sure it was a pretty tired crowd that landed
in here.
_Tuesday Morning._—I tried to write last night, but it was so cold I
had to give up. We are camped down in a deep hollow, where the sun
doesn’t get in till pretty late. Every morning the ground is white with
frost. It takes all our dry goods to keep us anywhere near comfortable,
day or night. Our grub is neither rich nor varied, but it appears to
agree with me—with what I have been able to pick up on the side. A man
who is enterprising can occasionally get hold of a piece of fresh meat.
Until last night, since leaving Bladensburg, every man has been his own
cook. Our tin plates served very well as stew- or fry-pans, and coffee
drank out of the tin dipper in which it was boiled on the coals of the
campfire, has a flavor all its own. But last night the company cooks
got into action again and served out boiled corned beef, hardbread, and
coffee. As it never rains but it pours, our sutler also got along and
opened up shop.
Guard duty in this place is not what it was at Bladensburg. Our company
goes on picket today down by the mouth of the creek we are camped on
[Nanjamoy,] to watch the rebels over across the river. Mail will leave
here three times a week.
Yesterday the rebel batteries were busy throwing shells over to this
side of the river, but our regiment was far out of range of fire.
Before we came down here the rebels used to come over and visit and
forage and gather recruits and scout around with impunity.
The infantry of this division consists of our own brigade—the First and
Eleventh Massachusetts, Twenty-sixth Pennsylvania, and the Second—and
General Sickles’ “Excelsior Brigade” of five New York regiments. The
regiments are strung along for a distance of probably seven or eight
miles, we being the farthest south.
———————
_XXVIII_
CAMP SECOND N. H. REGIMENT,
NEAR BUDD’S FERRY, MD., _Nov. 10, 1861_.
When I wrote you last we were camped in a hollow by Nanjamoy Creek.
Well, we got driven out. It was so infernally uncomfortable that Col.
Marston moved the camp up onto the hill. It is not probable that we
shall stay in this camp a very great while, but when or where we will
move is a riddle. For all that, we are doing a good deal of fixing up
that belongs to a permanent camp. Have built log huts for the company
cooks, which will probably be labor thrown away. But we are having a
good time. The woods are full of small game, although we do practically
no hunting. But the darkies bring in coons, possums, gray squirrels,
rabbits and chickens, all cooked, and well cooked. We have not seen
any soft bread since we left Washington. Our _hard_ bread certainly
does not belie its name. But given a good soaking in coffee, and well
lubricated with butter, I manage to dispose of my share.
Our mail is regular in nothing but its irregularity. A three days’
mail for this regiment got as far as the Massachusetts First, and
then, in some fool freak, was shipped back to Washington. Everybody is
swearing—except, possibly, the chaplain.
———————
_XXIX_
CAMP BAKER,
NEAR BUDD’S FERRY, MD., _Nov. 16, 1861_.
Since my last letter we have moved up several miles and are now
encamped with the rest of our brigade, near General Hooker’s
headquarters. Our location here is a most attractive one, the camp
being in the edge of woods thick enough to afford a perfect wind-break.
This insures us against such a calamity as we were up against at
wind-swept Hill Top, when several tents were overturned.
Yesterday I had a reserved seat at a first-class show. I heard the
rebel batteries on the other side of the Potomac banging away at
something, so I went down to the river—not a very great distance—to
find out what the trouble was. It was a saucy little schooner skimming
down the river, and the rebels trying to hit her. They fired about
sixty shots and never made a score. But it was an inspiring sight all
the same, the big guns flashing from battery after battery as the
vessel came in range, and puffs of smoke in the air or a big splash on
the water marking the grand finish.
It looks very much as though we were going into winter quarters here.
Logs of suitable size and length are being hauled in, to be used as
an underpinning for our canvas houses, and the boys, in squads of five
or six, are already at work on their quarters. My crew is already made
up, a picked squad of congenial souls, and we will get at our building
operations next week.
We had a thunder shower night before last, and it has cleared off very
cold. But there is an abundance of fuel, and half a dozen campfires
agoing in each company street.
———————
_XXX_
CAMP SECOND N. H. REGIMENT,
CHICKAMOXEN, MD., _Nov. 27, 1861_.
For amateurs, the association of house builders I joined has done a
good job. It is on the same general plan as most of the others. First,
you start in to build a log cabin. When the walls are four or five
feet high, you stop, fasten your tent on top—and there you are. It is
astonishing, the room you gain over a plain tent. On the right-hand
corner fronting the street is a fireplace—a big one—built, with its
chimney, of small logs laid cob-house fashion and thickly plastered
with Maryland mud. The bottom is sunk a foot or more, and around the
front is a one-log pen or barrier, which serves a double purpose. It is
just right for a seat before the fire, and it keeps our thick carpet of
straw out of mischief. When we are all fixed up we’ll have bunks and a
table and shelves and pegs and a gun rack and everything required in a
well-regulated family. I am writing by the light of a candle. Roberts
[Orsino,] one of the tent’s crew, is warming himself at the fire and
going over all the songs he has in stock, and the rest of the gang seem
to have no higher ambition, just at present, than to “break up” both me
and him.
Sunday our company went up to “the landing” to help unload two or
three small steamers that bring our supplies down from Washington. The
landing is at Rum Point, over three miles from here, but as near as
boats can get to us, on account of the rebel batteries. As we did not
start to return until after dark, we had a sweet time of it. The roads
here are now nothing but a ditch through woods and fields, filled with
mud of terrible adhesive qualities and of fabulous depth. I thought,
for the life of me, I should never get home. If I tried to follow the
road, I wallowed up to my knees in mud. If I switched off to one side
or the other, I had, in addition to the mud, a butting match with every
tree in the county. It was pitch dark when I landed in camp just ahead
of a smart shower.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day in New Hampshire, and we New Hampshire
boys out here on the Potomac will observe it in a befitting manner. In
our tent we have a big fat goose up on the shelf, with a rabbit- or
chicken-pie or two and a few other fixings. Beat that if you can.
———————
_XXXI_
CAMP BAKER,
CHICKAMOXEN, MD., _Dec. 1, 1861_.
I am just in from our standard show—a little schooner running up the
river and thumbing her nose at the rebel batteries. In all, they fired
seventy shots at her, with the usual result—no damage done. There was
much noise and smoke, a great splashing of the water, and lots of fun
for the boys in the gallery. As every shot they fire costs them from
ten to fifteen dollars, each schooner trip up or down the river must
be an expensive job for them. They must burn up about a thousand good
dollars every time, mainly to amuse a lot of Yankee soldiers over on
the Maryland shore.
Next Tuesday there is to be a grand review of this division, together
with an inspection. These functions are doubtless a military necessity,
but not very popular with the men—especially the inspections. You are
toled out with your entire outfit, and everything is hauled over,
peeked into and examined. They say Gen. McDowell, the old fellow who
led us to Bull Run (and back,) is down at headquarters. The last time I
saw him he was riding down the front of Burnsides’ brigade, in the corn
field at Bull Run, and telling us we had won a victory.
There are a thousand-and-one rumors afloat as to our leaving here, but
I am not expecting to move in any other direction than straight across
the river. Any man with a vivid imagination can make a guess, whisper
it to one or two, and before night it is all over camp as an authentic
tip from headquarters, Gen. Heintzelman’s division is advanced on the
other side almost down to the rebel position, and my guess is that
he will come down on them before long, while we will cross here and
give them Jessie, with the aid of the gunboats. They are getting ready
for us. We can see them digging and throwing up intrenchments on the
opposite hills.
———————
_XXXII_
CAMP BAKER,
CHICKAMOXEN, MD., _Dec. 8, 1861_.
Tomorrow rounds out just seven months of my three years’ term. The
other night, at the meeting of a literary society some of the First
Massachusetts boys have started, the Lieutenant-Colonel of the regiment
said he thought the regiment would be home by March. There’s the
cheerful optimist for you! Our regiment has been in the service just
about the same length of time as the First, and the two will probably
be sent home about the same time. Presumably the regiments first in the
field will go out first, and so we may get home many months before the
later regiments from New Hampshire. They will have to keep them as a
sort of police for a while after the war is really over.
For a day or two we have been having splendid weather. But under foot
it is simply awful. The “Maryland salve” is everywhere. The roads
are a terror now, and in a short time will be absolutely impassible
except where corduroyed with logs laid crossways to make some sort of a
platform for teams.
We were reinforced last week by a brigade of New Jersey troops. Just
below the blockade is a large fleet of gunboats, ready to co-operate in
any move we may make. Last night a big steamer ran the blockade in the
darkness and there was a terrific hullaballoo.
Joe Hubbard has got back from New Hampshire, but the boxes confided to
him have not yet arrived. He says there is one for me, and I am, of
course, very anxious to get it.
———————
_XXXIII_
CAMP BEAUFORT,
NEAR BUDD’S FERRY, MD., _Dec. 15, 1861_.
I wish you could take a peek-in on my luxurious surroundings. I have
a barber’s chair to sit in. It has a canvas back and seat, and was
built by Damon [George B.,] the Jack-at-all-trades of my tent’s party.
There is a good fire, plenty of apples at my elbow, and, all in all,
I am a pampered child of luxury. There are only two besides myself
occupying the castle just at present—George Slade and George Damon—very
companionable fellows, and who have seen a great deal of the world.
Two—George Cilley and Bill Wilber—are in the hospital, and E. Norman
Gunnison (a fellow with a decided talent for writing poetry) is in
the guard house for some infraction of camp discipline. So we three
that are left have plenty of room and get along mighty comfortably.
Slade and Damon are good cooks. We buy flour, butter, sugar, &c., and
cook a big slack of fritters whenever the spirit moves us. And we have
rabbits, chickens, wheat biscuits, and various other camp luxuries. And
occasionally we make molasses candy of an evening. All this, you will
understand, is outside of and in addition to our regular army rations.
Here is our schedule of duty: Reveille beats at sunrise, when we turn
out and answer to roll call. Then comes the breakfast call. At 9
o’clock is guard mount—that is, the company which has been on guard
duty is relieved by another. The remaining companies drill from 9 to
11 and 3 to 5—but now only occasionally, owing to weather conditions.
Dinner call at 12. Dress parade at sunset. Tattoo is beat at 8, when
the roll is called and the men can go to bed. The Colonel says we will
not have much drilling for the rest of the winter.
The boys find plenty to amuse themselves with, and things are by no
means dull here in camp. Quite a number of musical instruments have
found their way in, and there are men here who know how to play them
too—fiddles and banjos and such.
We had a large party of New Hampshire people in camp today—E. H.
Rollins, John P. Hale, Daniel Clark, Waterman Smith, E. A. Straw and
others. There were also four good-looking New Hampshire women, and they
got three rousing cheers at dress parade.
The old rumor factory now has it that the Second is going to Washington
within a few days, to act as provost guard. Joe Hubbard’s boxes have
not yet arrived, and may not for some time yet. The railroads leading
into Washington are buried in freight and express matter, but I suppose
our stuff will get through in due time.
You inquire what sort of a place this is. Well, it comes about as near
to being no place at all as it could and still be on the map. There
are but few houses hereabouts, and a good part of these are just negro
cabins. There is a store a little ways from here, but I have yet to
discover where enough local trade can come from to keep it going. The
Potomac is only about an eighth of a mile from our camp. From the
western edge of the strip of woods in which we are camped one can
see the river for a long distance, with the rebel batteries, and the
upper works of their gunboat “George Paige,” which sticks close up in
Quantico Creek, out of reach of our gunboats. The river here is less
than two miles wide and the deep-water channel runs very near the other
side, so a large vessel has to run close in to the rebel batteries to
get through at all.
We witnessed a lively little brush the other day. The rebels started
to throw up some works on Shipping Point, and the “Harriet Lane” and
five other gunboats dropped down and told them to stop it. The way they
pitched shells onto that point was a caution. And a few nights ago—just
for fun, as near as I could figure it out—one of our gunboats dropped
down to the upper battery and had some sport for a while. I always did
like fireworks, so I got the countersign and went out to take in the
display. It was worth the money.
You have thought to inquire for “Heenan.” Alas! Poor Heenan! It grieves
me to inform you that the other night he got into an argument with a
Company D boy. Just what condition the other fellow was left in—if
still alive—I don’t know. But when Heenan returned to the bosom of
his family he was a sight. His face was badly bruised, both eyes in
mourning, and one thumb chewed to a jelly. He says he wanted his thumbs
to be mates, and the other was crushed out of shape before he left
Portsmouth.
———————
_XXXIV_
CAMP BEAUFORT, _Dec. 22, 1861_.
Our friends over the river have got another battery in good working
order. It mounts a 64-pounder rifled gun, and the other night they
dropped two shells within the camp limits of the New Jersey brigade,
forty or fifty rods from our camp.
The boxes sent on by Joe Hubbard have at last arrived, and you may
be sure we were glad to see them. I presume you know what was in
mine as well as I do myself. The pies went into the common stock and
disappeared as though they had legs. The various articles of clothing
filled my knapsack as full as it would hold. And I must say to you
that the little knitted smoking-cap or skating-cap or sleeping cap,
or whatever you call it, is the gayest fez in camp. There are quite
a number in the company, built on the same general lines, but no two
alike, and mine takes first premium. I wish I could see you long enough
to thank you for it.
I took one of the big boxes and made a cupboard to keep my things in.
I have my eating utensils on one shelf, writing materials, bundles of
letters, &c., on another, papers, magazines and books on the third.
Col. Marston was wounded last Sunday by the accidental discharge of a
pistol, so Lieut.-Col. Fiske is in command. He is a great fellow for
drilling the men, and we are not having as easy a time as we did with
Marston.
One of the boys has just come in, bringing a fragment of a shell fired
by the rebels at our battery down near the river. All the mementos I
have picked up so far are a sand-bag from the rebel works at Fairfax
Court House and a few insignificant trifles.
———————
_XXXV_
CAMP BEAUFORT, _Dec. 29, 1861_.
I am feeling pretty ragged just now, but I see a glimmer of comfort
ahead in the shape of a big lot of biscuits Damon is making for
supper. We have not had any rations of soft bread since we left
Bladensburg, but better days are coming. They are putting in a bakery
for the Second Regiment, and when it is done I expect the boys will
feel like getting up a celebration. Really, though, it won’t make
so much difference in this tent, where we have had a very efficient
private bakery in operation for some time. Even I, as a lover of
toast, have developed some skill in making good buttered toast out of
our hardbread. I soak and boil it a long, long time, then stack the
crackers up, buttering each, and it is a pretty palatable dish, if I do
say it as shouldn’t.
———————
_XXXVI_
CAMP BEAUFORT,
CHARLES COUNTY, MD., _Jan. 5, 1862_.
Night before last we had a regular old-fashioned hail-storm. I lay on
the ground in my tent, rolled up in my blankets and overcoat, cozy,
snug and warm in spite of the hail that was hammering my canvas roof,
and pitied the poor people who didn’t have a fireplace, a snug nest,
and a roof. But last night the boot was on the other leg. I was on
guard, and it was miserably cold, with ice a quarter of inch thick
over everything. When I came off, along in the night, I headed for my
tent and comfort for a while. Had just got comfortably settled when
some one stuck his head in and hollered, “_Your chimney’s on fire!_” I
rolled out, broke through the ice in a water-hole, mixed some mud, and
plastered it into the crevices. In about an hour, another good angel
sang the same song, and I went through the same performance. Another
hour, and the third alarm came. I was now thoroughly mad and utterly
demoralized, and I howled back, “Well, let her burn if she wants to.”
It smouldered until morning, when we doctored it so we hope it will
behave for a few days at least.
The rebels have not been very demonstrative lately. I hear that Gen.
Hooker has orders not to grant any more furloughs, as Heintzelman is
advancing on the other side and is liable to have a fight any day,
in which event we will be called upon to support him. And besides
this, Gunnison has had a dream. He believes in all sorts of uncanny
manifestations, and the other night he dreamed that the regiment was in
a battle, and in an awful hot place too. I am not very anxious to get
out of my present comfortable quarters, unless it might be to go home
or farther south where it is warmer. If it were not for that glorious
old fireplace of ours we should not be as comfortable or as cheerful as
we are.
———————
_XXXVII_
CAMP BEAUFORT,
CHICKAMOXEN, MD., _Jan. 12, 1862_.
I have been working like a beaver all day and am awfully tired. It was
that infernal chimney. Last night it got afire again and was roaring
gloriously before we found it out. So today the whole crew put in their
time reconstructing it. It is a pretty substantial piece of work, and
it ought to stand the wear and tear for a long time. This is one of the
most enjoyable days of the season—warm and with a refreshing breeze.
But O, the mud! And not a bit of snow on the ground.
Last night the rebels fired a great many random shots across the
river, hit or miss, here and there, and have been keeping at it,
intermittently, today. They know, of course, the location of our camps,
and it is really surprising that not a speck of damage has been done.
A number of the shells struck quite near to our camp. Today one shell
struck square in the New Jersey camp, but did not explode. And this
afternoon, while I was sitting in my tent half asleep, there was a wild
screech a few feet overhead, and a shell landed on the parade ground
a few rods beyond the camp, but did not explode. A crowd ran out from
the camp, but Damon captured the prize and brought it into our tent.
A little while after, he sold it for ten dollars. [Major Stevens was
the purchaser. For several years, properly labeled, it was one of the
exhibits in the Adjutant-General’s office at Concord.]
You inquire of me why we don’t fight. I don’t know. Suppose the time
hasn’t come yet. I have no doubt it will before long, however, and
there will be a lively time.
———————
_XXXVIII_
CAMP BEAUFORT,
CHARLES CO., MD., _Jan. 19, 1862_.
Horrible weather! It is almost inconceivably muddy, and today it is
raining. I went out to watch the batteries work, today, and it was a
question sometimes whether I wouldn’t have to leave my boots in the
mud. We have spells of cold weather, with a little snow, but it soon
gets warm and rains.
Jim Carr, of our company, cut his foot terribly with an axe, yesterday.
The blade went right through the bones, and he will be crippled for a
long time.
I have studied it out that we will not trouble the rebels on the
other side for some time yet. We are building big mortar rafts up at
Baltimore, to be used in shelling out the rebel batteries. It will take
some time to get them ready, of course; but when the time does come
there will be music in the air.
Last week I helped dig out a rebel shell. It was buried seven feet in
the solid earth and must have traveled over four miles.
———————
_XXXIX_
CAMP BEAUFORT,
CHARLES CO., MD., _Jan. 26, 1862_.