_Culpepper, Virginia, Friday night, Feb. 12, 1864._ DEAREST MOTHER--I am
still stopping down in this region. I am a good deal of the time down
within half a mile of our picket lines, so that you see I can indeed call
myself in the front. I stopped yesterday with an artillery camp in the 1st
Corps at the invitation of Capt. Crawford, who said that he knew me in
Brooklyn. It is close to the lines--I asked him if he did not think it
dangerous. He said, No, he could have a large force of infantry to help
him there, in very short metre, if there was any sudden emergency. The
troops here are scattered all around, much more apart than they seemed to
me to be opposite Fredericksburg last winter. They mostly have good huts
and fireplaces, etc. I have been to a great many of the camps, and I must
say I am astonished [how] good the houses are almost everywhere. I have
not seen one regiment, nor any part of one, in the poor uncomfortable
little shelter tents that I saw so common last winter after
Fredericksburg--but all the men have built huts of logs and mud. A good
many of them would be comfortable enough to live in under any
circumstances. I have been in the division hospitals around here. There
are not many men sick here, and no wounded--they now send them on to
Washington. I shall return there in a few days, as I am very clear that
the real need of one's services is there after all--there the worst cases
concentrate, and probably will, while the war lasts. I suppose you know
that what we call hospital here in the field is nothing but a collection
of tents on the bare ground for a floor--rather hard accommodation for a
sick man. They heat them there by digging a long trough in the ground
under them, covering it over with old railroad iron and earth, and then
building a fire at one end and letting it draw through and go out at the
other, as both ends are open. This heats the ground through the middle of
the hospital quite hot. I find some poor creatures crawling about pretty
weak with diarrhoea; there is a great deal of that; they keep them until
they get very bad indeed, and then send them to Washington. This
aggravates the complaint, and they come into Washington in a terrible
condition. O mother, how often and how many I have seen come into
Washington from this awful complaint after such an experience as I have
described--with the look of death on their poor young faces; they keep
them so long in the field hospitals with poor accommodations the disease
gets too deeply seated.
To-day I have been out among some of the camps of the 2nd division of the
1st Corps. I have been wandering around all day, and have had a very good
time, over woods, hills, and gullies--indeed, a real soldier's march. The
weather is good and the travelling quite tolerable. I have been in the
camps of some Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New York regiments. I have
friends in them, and went out to see them, and see soldiering generally,
as I can never cease to crave more and more knowledge of actual soldiers'
life, and to be among them as much as possible. This evening I have also
been in a large wagoners' camp. They had good fires and were very
cheerful. I went to see a friend there, too, but did not find him in. It
is curious how many I find that I know and that know me. Mother, I have no
difficulty at all in making myself at home among the soldiers, teamsters,
or any--I most always find they like to have me very much; it seems to do
them good. No doubt they soon feel that my heart and sympathies are truly
with them, and it is both a novelty and pleases them and touches their
feelings, and so doubtless does them good--and I am sure it does that to
me. There is more fun around here than you would think for. I told you
about the theatre the 14th Brooklyn has got up--they have songs and
burlesques, etc.; some of the performers real good. As I write this I have
heard in one direction or another two or three good bands playing--and
hear one tooting away some gay tunes now, though it is quite late at
night. Mother, I don't know whether I mentioned in my last letter that I
took dinner with Col. Fowler one day early part of the week. His wife is
stopping here. I was down at the 14th as I came along this evening,
too--one of the officers told me about a presentation to George of a
sword, etc.--he said he see it in the papers. The 14th invited me to come
and be their guest while I staid here, but I have not been able to
accept. Col. Fowler uses me tip-top--he is provost marshal of this
region; makes a good officer. Mother, I could get no pen and ink to-night.
Well, dear mother, I send you my love, and to George and Jeff and Mat and
little girls and all.