OUR FIRST WINTER QUARTERS.
"Well, fellows, I tell you what! I've heard a good deal about the
balmy breezes and sunny skies of Old Virginny, but if this is a
specimen of the sort of weather they have in these parts, I, for
one, move we 'right-about-face' and march home."
So saying, Phil Hammer got up from under the scrub-pine, where
he had made his bed for the night, shaking the snow from his
blanket and the cape of his overcoat, while a loud "Ha! ha!" and
an oft-repeated "What do you think of this, boys?" rang along the
hillside on which we had found our first camping-place on "Old
Virginia's Shore."
The weather had played us a most deceptive and unpleasant trick. We
had landed the day before, as my journal says, "at Belle Plains,
at a place called Platt's Landing," having been brought down from
Washington on the steamer "Louisiana;" had marched some three or
four miles inland in the direction of Falmouth, and had halted
and camped for the night in a thick undergrowth of scrub-pine and
cedar. The day of our landing was remarkably fair. The skies were
so bright, the air was so soft and balmy, that we were rejoiced
to find what a pleasant country it was we were getting into, to
be sure; but the next morning, when we drummer-boys woke the men
with our loud reveille, we were all of Phil's opinion, that the
sunny skies and balmy breezes of this new land were all a miserable
fiction. For as man after man opened his eyes at the loud roll
of our drums, and the shout of the orderly: "Fall in, Company
D, for roll-call!" he found himself covered with four inches of
snow, and more coming down. Fortunately, the bushes had afforded
us some protection; they were so numerous and so thick that one
could scarcely see twenty rods ahead of him, and with their great
overhanging branches had kindly kept the falling snow out of our
faces, at least while we slept.
[Illustration: IN WINTER-QUARTERS.]
And now began a busy time. We were to build winter quarters--a
work for which we were but poorly prepared, either by nature or by
circumstance. Take any body of men out of civilized life, put them
into the woods to shift for themselves, and they are generally as
helpless as children. As for ourselves, we were indeed "Babes in
the Wood." At least half the regiment knew nothing of wood-craft,
having never been accustomed to the use of the axe. It was a
laughable sight to see some of the men from the city try to cut
down a tree! Besides, we were poorly equipped. Axes were scarce,
and worth almost their weight in gold. We had no "shelter-tents."
Most of us had "poncho" blankets; that is to say, a piece of
oilcloth about five feet by four, with a slit in the middle. But we
found our ponchos very poor coverings for our cabins; for the rain
just _would_ run down through that unfortunate hole in the middle;
and then, too, the men needed their oilcloths when they went on
picket, for which purpose they had been particularly intended. This
circumstance gave rise to frequent discussion that day: whether to
use the poncho as a covering for the cabin, and get soaked on
picket, or to save the poncho for picket, and cover the cabin
with brushwood and clay? Some messes[1] chose the one alternative,
others the other; and as the result of this preference, together
with our ignorance of wood-craft and the scarcity of axes, we
produced on that hillside the oddest looking winter quarters a
regiment ever built! Such an agglomeration of cabins was never seen
before nor since. I am positive no two cabins on all that hillside
had the slightest resemblance to each other.
[1] A "mess" is a number of men who eat together.
There, for instance, was a mess over in Company A, composed of men
from the city. They had _one_ kind of cabin, an immense square
structure of pine-logs, about seven feet high, and covered over
the top, first with brushwood, and then coated so heavily with
clay that I am certain the roof must have been two feet thick at
the least. It was hardly finished before some wag had nicknamed it
"Fortress Monroe."
Then there was Ike Zellers, of our own company; he invented another
style of architecture, or perhaps I should rather say he borrowed
it from the Indians. Ike would have none of your flat-roofed
concerns; he would build a wigwam. And so, marking out a huge
circle, in the centre of which he erected a pole, and around the
pole a great number of smaller poles, with one end on the circle
and the other end meeting in the common apex, covering this with
brush, and the brush with clay, he made for himself a house that
was quite warm, indeed, but one so fearfully gloomy, that within it
was as dark at noon as at midnight. Ominous sounds came afterward
from the dark recesses of "The Wigwam;" for we were a "skirmish
regiment," and Ike was our bugler, and the way he tooted all day
long, "Deploy to the right and left," "Rally by fours," and "Rally
by platoons," was suggestive of things yet to come.
Then there was my own tent, or cabin, if indeed I may dignify
it with the name of either; for it was a cross between a house
and a cave. Andy and I thought we would follow the advice of the
Irishman, who, in order to raise his roof higher, dug his cellar
deeper. We resolved to dig down some three feet; "and then, Harry,
we'll log her up about two feet high, cover her with ponchos, and
we'll have the finest cabin in the row!" It took us about three
days to accomplish so stupendous an undertaking, during which time
we slept at night under the bushes as best we could, and when our
work was done, we moved in with great satisfaction. I remember the
door of our house was a mystery to all visitors, as, indeed, it was
to ourselves until we "got the hang of it," as Andy said. It was a
hole about two feet square, cut through one end of the log part of
the cabin, and through it you had to crawl as best you could. If
you put one leg in first, then the head, and then drew in the other
leg after you, you were all right; but if, as visitors generally
did, you put in your head first, you were obliged to crawl in on
all fours in a most ungraceful and undignified fashion.
That was a queer-looking camp all through. If you went up to the
top of the hill, where the Colonel had his quarters, and looked
down, a strange sight met your eyes. By the time the next winter
came, however, we had learned how to swing an axe, and we built
ourselves winter quarters that reflected no little credit on
our skill as experienced woodsmen. The last cabin we built--it
was down in front of Petersburg--was a model of comfort and
convenience: ten feet long by six wide and five high, made of clean
pine-logs straight as an arrow, and covered with shelter tents; a
chimney at one end, and a comfortable bunk at the other; the inside
walls covered with clean oat-bags, and the gable ends papered with
pictures cut from illustrated papers; a mantelpiece, a table, a
stool; and we were putting down a floor of pine-boards, too, one
day toward the close of winter, when the surgeon came by, and,
looking in, said:
"No time to drive nails now, boys; we have orders to move!" But
Andy said:
"Pound away, Harry, pound away; we'll see how it looks, anyhow,
before we go!"
I remember an amusing occurrence in connection with the building
of our winter quarters. I had gone over to see some of the boys
of our company one evening, and found they had "logged up" their
tent about four feet high, and stretched a poncho over it to keep
the snow out, and were sitting before a fire they had built in a
chimney-place at one end. The chimney was built up only as high
as the log walls reached, the intention being to "cat-stick and
daub" it afterward to a sufficient height. The mess had just got a
box from home, and some one had hung nearly two yards of sausage
on a stick across the top of the chimney, "to smoke." And there,
on a log rolled up in front of the fire, I found Jimmy Lucas and
Sam Ruhl sitting smoking their pipes, and glancing up the chimney
between whiffs every now and then, to see that the sausage was
safe. Sitting down between them, I watched the cheery glow of the
fire, and we fell to talking, now about the jolly times they were
having at home at the holiday season, and again about the progress
of our cabin-building, while every now and then Jimmy would peep
up the chimney on one side, and shortly after Sam would squint up
on the other. After sitting thus for half an hour or so, all of a
sudden, Sam, looking up the chimney, jumped off the log, clapped
his hands together, and shouted:
"Jim, it's _gone_!"
Gone it was; and you might as well look for a needle in a haystack
as search for two yards of sausage among troops building winter
quarters on short rations!
One evening Andy and I were going to have a feast, consisting in
the main of a huge dish of apple-fritters. We bought the flour
and the apples of the sutler at enormous figures, for we were so
tired of the endless monotony of bacon, beef, and bean-soup, that
we were bent on having a glorious supper, cost or no cost. We had
a rather small chimney-place, in which Andy was superintending
the heating of a mess-pan half full of lard, while I was busying
myself with the flour, dough, and apples, when, as ill-luck would
have it, the lard took fire and flamed up the chimney with a roar
and a blaze so bright that it illuminated the whole camp from end
to end. Unfortunately, too, for us, four of our companies had been
recruited in the city, and most of them had been in the volunteer
fire department, in which service they had gained an experience,
useful enough to them on the present occasion, but most disastrous
to us.
No sooner was the bright blaze seen pouring high out of the
chimney-top of our modest little cabin, than at least a half-dozen
fire companies were on the instant organized for the emergency. The
"Humane," the "Fairmount," the "Good-will," with their imaginary
engines and hose-carriages, came dashing down our company street
with shouts, and yells, and cheers. It was but the work of a moment
to attach the imaginary hose to imaginary plugs, plant imaginary
ladders, tear down the chimney and demolish the roof, amid a
flood of sparks, and to the intense delight of the firemen, but
to our utter consternation and grief. It took us days to repair
the damage, and we went to bed with some of our neighbors, after a
scant supper of hard-tack and coffee.
How did we spend our time in winter quarters, do you ask? Well,
there was always enough to do, you may be sure, and often it was
work of the very hardest sort. Two days in the week the regiment
went out on picket, and while there got but little sleep and
suffered much from exposure. When they were not on picket, all
the men not needed for camp guard had to drill. It was nothing
but drill, drill, drill: company drill, regimental drill, brigade
drill, and once even division drill. Our regiment, as I have said,
was a skirmish regiment, and the skirmish-drill is no light work,
let me tell you. Many an evening the men came in more dead than
alive after skirmishing over the country for miles around, all the
afternoon. Reveille and roll-call at five o'clock in the morning,
guard mount at nine, company drill from ten to twelve, regimental
drill from two to four, dress-parade at five, tattoo and lights
out at nine at night, with continual practice on the drum for us
drummer-boys--so our time passed away.