FIRST DAYS IN CAMP.
Our first camp was located on the outskirts of Harrisburg, Pa.,
and was called "Camp Curtin." It was so named in honor of Governor
Andrew G. Curtin, the "War Governor" of the State of Pennsylvania,
who was regarded by the soldiers of his State with a patriotic
enthusiasm second only to that with which they, in common with all
the troops of the Northern States, greeted the name of Abraham
Lincoln.
Camp Curtin was not properly a camp of instruction. It was rather
a mere rendezvous for the different companies which had been
recruited in various parts of the State. Hither the volunteers
came by hundreds and thousands for the purpose of being mustered
into the service, uniformed and equipped, assigned to regiments,
and shipped to the front as rapidly as possible. Only they who
witnessed it can form any idea of the patriotic ardor, amounting
often to a wild enthusiasm, with which volunteering went on in
those days. Companies were often formed, and their muster-rolls
filled, in a week, sometimes in a few days. The contagion of
enlisting and "going to the war" was in the very atmosphere. You
could scarcely accompany a friend to a way station on any of the
main lines of travel, without seeing the future wearers of blue
coats at the car-windows and on the platforms. Very frequently
whole trains were filled with them, speeding away to the State
capital as swift as steam could carry them. They poured into
Harrisburg, company by company, usually in citizens' clothes, and
marched out of the town a week or so later, regiment by regiment,
all glorious in bright new uniforms and glistening bayonets,
transformed in a few days from citizens into soldiers, and destined
for deeds of high endeavor on many a bloody field.
Shortly after our arrival in camp, Andy and I went to town to
purchase such articles as we supposed a soldier would be likely to
need,--a gum-blanket, a journal, a combination knife, fork, and
spoon, and so on to the end of the list. To our credit I have it to
record that we turned a deaf ear to the solicitations of a certain
dealer in cutlery who insisted on selling us each a revolver, and
an ugly looking bowie-knife in a bright red morocco sheath.
"Shentlemens, shust de ting you vill need ven you goes into de
battle. Ah, see dis knife, how it shines! Look at dis very fine
revolfer!"
But Moses entreated in vain, while his wife stood at the shop-door
looking at some regiment marching down the street to the depot,
weeping as if her heart would break, and wiping her eyes with the
corner of her apron from time to time.
"Ah, de poor boys!" said she. "Dere dey go again, off to de great
war, away from deir homes, and deir mutters, deir wives and deir
sweethearts, all to be kilt in de battle! Dey will nefer any more
coom back. Oh, it is so wicked!"
But the drums rattled on, and the crowd on the sidewalk gazed and
cheered, and Moses behind his counter smiled pleasantly as he
cried up his wares and went on selling bowie-knives and revolvers
to kill men with, while his wife went on weeping and lamenting
because men would be killed in the wicked war, and "nefer any more
coom back." The firm of Moses and wife struck us as a very strange
combination of business and sentiment. I do not know how many
knives and pistols Moses sold, nor how many tears his good wife
shed, but if she wept whenever a regiment marched down the street
to the depot, her eyes must have been turned into a river of tears;
for the tap of the drum and the tramp of the men resounded along
the streets of the capital by day and by night, until people grew
so used to it that they scarcely noticed it any more.
The tide of volunteering was at the full during those early fall
days of 1862. But the day came at length when the tide began to
turn. Various expedients were then resorted to for the purpose of
stimulating the flagging zeal of Pennsylvania's sons. At first the
tempting bait of large bounties was presented--county bounties,
city bounties, State and United States bounties--some men towards
the close of the war receiving as much as one thousand dollars, and
never smelling powder at that. At last drafting was of necessity
resorted to, and along with drafting came all the miseries of
"hiring substitutes," and so making merchandise of a service of
which it is the chief glory that it shall be free.
But in the fall of '62 there had been no drafting yet, and large
bounties were unknown--and unsought. Most of us were taken quite
by surprise when, a few days after our arrival in camp, we were
told that the County Commissioners had come down for the purpose of
paying us each the magnificent sum of fifty dollars. At the same
time, also, we learned that the United States Government would
pay us each one hundred dollars additional, of which, however,
only twenty-five were placed in our hands at once. The remaining
seventy-five were to be received only by those who might safely
pass through all the unknown dangers which awaited us, and live to
be mustered out with the regiment three years later.
Well, it was no matter then. What cared we for bounty? It seemed a
questionable procedure, at all events, this offering of money as a
reward for an act which, to be a worthy act at all, asks not and
needs not the guerdon of gold. We were all so anxious to enter the
service, that, instead of looking for any artificial helps in that
direction, our only concern was lest we might be rejected by the
examining surgeon and not be admitted to the ranks.
For soon after our arrival, and before we were mustered into the
service, every man was thoroughly examined by a medical officer,
who had us presented to him one by one, _in puris naturalibus_,
in a large tent, where he sharply questioned us--"Teeth sound?
Eyes good? Ever had this, that, and the other disease?"--and
pitiable was the case of that unfortunate man who, because of bad
hearing, or defective eyesight, or some other physical blemish,
was compelled to don his citizen's clothes again and take the next
train for home.
After having been thoroughly examined, we were mustered into the
service. We were all drawn up in line. Every man raised his right
hand while an officer recited the oath. It took only a few minutes,
but when it was over one of the boys exclaimed: "Now, fellows, I'd
like to see any man go home if he dare. We belong to Uncle Sam now."
Of the one thousand men drawn up in line there that day, some
lived to come back three years later and be drawn up in line again,
almost on that identical spot, for the purpose of being mustered
out of the service. And how many do you think there were? Not more
than one hundred and fifty.
As we now belonged to Uncle Sam, it was to be expected that he
would next proceed to clothe us. This he punctually did a few days
after the muster. We had no little merriment when we were called
out and formed in line and marched up to the quartermaster's
department at one side of the camp to draw our uniforms. There were
so many men to be uniformed, and so little time in which to do it,
that the blue clothes were passed out to us almost regardless of
the size and weight of the prospective wearer. Each man received
a pair of pantaloons, a coat, cap, overcoat, shoes, blanket, and
underwear, of which latter the shirt was--well, a revelation to
most of us both as to size and shape and material. It was so rough,
that no living mortal, probably, could wear it, except perhaps one
who wished to do penance by wearing a hair shirt. Mine was promptly
sent home along with my citizen's clothes, with the request
that it be kept as a sort of heir-loom in the family for future
generations to wonder at.
With our clothes on our arms, we marched back to our tents,
and there proceeded to get on the inside of our new uniforms.
The result was in most cases astonishing! For, as might have
been expected, scarcely one man in ten was fitted. The tall men
had invariably received the short pantaloons, and presented an
appearance, when they emerged from their tents, which was equalled
only by that of the short men who had, of course, received the
long pantaloons. One man's cap was perched away up on the top of
his head, while another's rested on his ears. Andy, who was not
very tall, waddled forth into the company street amid shouts of
laughter, having his pantaloons turned up some six inches or more
from the bottoms, declaring that "Uncle Sam must have got the
patterns for his boys' pantaloons somewhere over in France; for he
seems to have cut them after the style of the two French towns,
Toulon and Toulouse."
"Hello, fellows! what do you think of this? Now just look here,
will you!" exclaimed Pointer Donachy, the tallest man in the
company, as he came out of his tent in a pair of pantaloons that
were little more than knee-breeches for him, and began to parade
the street with a tent-pole for a musket. "How in the name of the
American eagle is a man going to fight the battles of his country
in such a uniform as this? Seems to me that Uncle Sam must be a
little short of cloth, boys."
"Brother Jonathan generally dresses in tights, you know," said some
one.
"Ah," said Andy, "Pointer's uniform reminds one of what the poet
says,--
"'Man needs but little here below,
Nor needs that little long.'"
"You're rather poor at quoting poetry, Andy," answered Pointer,
"because I need more than a little here below: I need at least six
inches."
But the shoes! Coarse, broad-soled, low-heeled "gunboats," as we
afterward learned to call them--what a time there was getting into
them. Here came one fellow down the street with shoes so big that
they could scarcely be kept on his feet, while over yonder another
tugged and pulled and kicked himself red in the face over a pair
that _would_ not go on. But by trading off, the large men gradually
got the large garments and the little men the small, so that in a
few days we were all pretty well suited.
I remember hearing about one poor fellow in another company, a
great strapping six-footer, who could not be suited. The largest
shoe furnished by the Government was quite too small. The giant
tried his best to force his foot in, but in vain. His comrades
gathered about him, and laughed, and chaffed him unmercifully,
whereupon he exclaimed,--
"Why, you don't think they are all _boys_ that come to the army, do
you? A man like me needs a man's shoe, not a baby's."
There was another poor fellow, a very small man, who had received
a very large pair of shoes, and had not yet been able to effect
any exchange. One day the sergeant was drilling the company on the
facings--Right-face, Left-face, Right-about-face--and of course
watched his men's feet closely, to see that they went through the
movements promptly. Observing one pair of feet down the line that
never budged at the command, the sergeant, with drawn sword, rushed
up to the possessor of them, and in menacing tones demanded,--
"What do you mean by not facing about when I tell you? I'll have
you put in the guard-house, if you don't mind."
"Why--I--did, sergeant," said the trembling recruit.
"You did not, sir. Didn't I watch your feet? They never moved an
inch."
"Why, you see," said the man, "my shoes are so big that they don't
turn when I do. I go through the motions on the inside of them!"
Although Camp Curtin was not so much a camp of instruction as a
camp of equipment, yet once we had received our arms and uniforms,
we were all eager to be put on drill. Even before we had received
our uniforms, every evening we had some little drilling under
command of Sergeant Cummings, who had been out in the three
months' service. Clothed in citizens' dress and armed with such
sticks and poles as we could pick up, we must have presented a
sorry appearance on parade. Perhaps the most comical figure in
the line was that of old Simon Malehorn, who, clothed in a long
linen duster, high silk hat, blue overalls, and loose slippers,
was forever throwing the line into confusion by breaking rank and
running back to find his slipper, which he had lost in the dust
somewhere, and happy was he if some one of the boys had not quietly
smuggled it into his pocket or under his coat, and left poor Simon
to finish the parade in his stocking-feet.
Awkward enough in the drill we all were, to be sure. Still, we were
not quite so stupid as a certain recruit of whom it was related
that the drill sergeant had to take him aside as an "awkward squad"
by himself, and try to teach him how to "mark time." But alas!
the poor fellow did not know his right foot from his left, and
consequently could not follow the order, "Left! Left!" until the
sergeant, driven almost to desperation, lit on the happy expedient
of tying a wisp of straw on one foot and a similar wisp of hay on
the other, and then put the command in a somewhat agricultural
shape--"Hay-foot, Straw-foot! Hay-foot, Straw-foot!" whereupon it
is said he did quite well; for if he did not know his left foot
from his right, he at least could tell hay from straw.
One good effect of our having been detained in Camp Curtin for
several weeks was that we thus had the opportunity of forming the
acquaintance of the other nine companies, with which we were to be
joined in one common regimental organization. Some of these came
from the western and some from the eastern part of the State; some
were from the city, some from inland towns and small villages,
and some from the wild lumber regions. Every rank, class, and
profession seemed to be represented. There were clerks, farmers,
students, railroad men, iron-workers, lumbermen. At first we were
all strangers to one another. The different companies, having as
yet no regimental life to bind them together as a unit, naturally
regarded each other as foreigners rather than as members of the
same organization. In consequence of this, there was no little
rivalry between company and company, together with no end of
friendly chaffing and lively banter, especially about the time
of roll-call in the evening. The names of the men who hailed
from the west were quite strange, and a long-standing source of
amusement to the boys from the east, and _vice versâ_. When the
Orderly-Sergeant of Company I called the roll, the men of Company
B would pick out all the outlandish-sounding surnames and make all
manner of puns on them, only to be paid back in their own coin by
similar criticisms of _their_ roll. Then there were certain forms
of expression peculiar to the different sections from which the men
came, strange idiomatic usages of speech, amounting at times to the
most pronounced provincialisms, which were a long-continued source
of merriment. Thus the Philadelphia boys made all sport of the boys
from the upper tier of counties because they said "I be going deown
to teown," and invariably used "I make out to" for "I am going to,"
or "I intend to." Some of the men, it was observed, called every
species of board, no matter how thin, "a plank;" and every kind
of stone, no matter how small, "a rock." How the men laughed one
evening when a high wind came up and blew the dust in dense clouds
all over the camp, and one of the western boys was heard to declare
that he had "a rock in his eye!"
Once we got afield, however, there was developed such a feeling of
regimental unity as soon obliterated whatever natural antagonisms
may at first have existed between the different companies.
Peculiarities of speech of course remained, and a generous and
wholesome rivalry never disappeared; but these were a help rather
than a hindrance. For in military, as in all social life, there can
be no true unity without some diversity in the component parts,--a
principle which is fully recognized in our national motto, "_E
pluribus unum_."
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