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[Illustration: THE "RAW RECRUIT."]
A RAW RECRUIT'S
WAR EXPERIENCES.
BY
ANSEL D. NICKERSON,
Late Private Co. B, Eleventh Rhode Island Volunteers.
PROVIDENCE:
PRINTED BY THE PRESS COMPANY.
1888.
FOR PRIVATE DISTRIBUTION ONLY.
AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED
To My Wife,
WHOSE PATRIOTIC SPIRIT PROMPTED
ME TO OFFER MY SERVICES
TO MY COUNTRY.
"The neighing troop, the flashing blade,
The bugle's stirring blast,
The charge, the dreadful cannonade,
The din and shout are past."
APOLOGY.
This "war paper" was first read before the Rhode Island Soldiers and
Sailors Society, in Providence, October 19, 1886. Subsequently it was read
at the annual winter reunion of the Eleventh Rhode Island Regiment
(January 27, 1887), two companies of which regiment (B and F) were
recruited in Pawtucket, the former commanded by Captain Charles W.
Thrasher and Lieutenant Thomas Moies, and the latter by Captain Edward
Taft. It has since been read several times before other associations and
societies. The paper was not intended for publication, nor was it
originally broken into chapters, and in allowing it to be published, the
author permits the urgent requests of numerous friends to outweigh his own
judgment. It does not assume to be a connected or detailed history of the
regiment; nor is it the history of any one company of the regiment; nor is
it the diary of an officer of the regiment, but simply what its title
indicates, "A RAW RECRUIT'S WAR EXPERIENCES." More is said about Company B
than of any other company in the Eleventh Regiment for the reason that the
aforesaid "raw recruit's war experiences" were especially identified with
that company. Being personal recollections, and to a large extent the
recital of personal incidents connected with the nine months' campaign of
the regiment in Virginia, must be my apology for the frequent use of the
personal pronoun I.
As the events of which I speak occurred at a period in our country's
history when a spade was called a spade, and among a class of men who
could not be justly accused of ambiguity of expression, my paper will be
found to contain more than one "strong, old-fashioned English word,
familiar to all who read their Bibles."
To those comrades whose war experiences were of a very different character
from my own, and into whose hands this unpretentious little volume may
fall, I trust that the recital of some of the ludicrous scenes in camp and
on the march, rather than the harrowing descriptions of sanguinary
battles, may not prove wholly unwelcome.
A. D. N.
PAWTUCKET, R. I.,
_April, 1888._
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
THE "RAW RECRUIT" ENLISTS AND GOES INTO CAMP 1
CHAPTER II.
OFF FOR THE SEAT OF WAR--THE KNAPSACKS 11
CHAPTER III.
AT MINER'S HILL--FIRST DEATH--THE "LONG ROLL" 18
CHAPTER IV.
THE CONVALESCENT CAMP--SCENES GRAVE AND GAY 27
CHAPTER V.
AT "THE FRONT"--NORFOLK AND SUFFOLK 34
CHAPTER VI.
PASTIMES IN CAMP--RELIGIOUS SERVICES 40
CHAPTER VII.
BAKED BEANS--THE DEACON'S ADVICE--STEAMED OYSTERS 46
CHAPTER VIII.
THE ELEVENTH LOSES TWO COLONELS 51
CHAPTER IX.
YORKTOWN--HOME AGAIN--MUSTERED OUT 57
CHAPTER X.
"HONOR TO WHOM HONOR IS DUE" 61
A Raw Recruit's War Experiences.
CHAPTER I.
During the winter preceding the firing upon Sumter, I was one of a group
of young fellows of about my own age who regularly assembled evenings at
the corner grocery of the village where we lived, to listen to older
persons discuss the affairs of the nation and all other matters, moral,
intellectual and social, as is the nightly custom in country groceries,
and particularly the probabilities of war between the North and the South,
which, I will say in passing, every day grew more probable. Each several
barrel-head in that grocery seemed to know its own occupant, and for any
one else to have appropriated it to his own use, especially had he been a
young man, would, I am sure, have been deemed an unpardonable breach of
courtesy. The grocer himself was the acknowledged spokesman of the
company, and never allowed himself to be "switched off" from the subject
in hand, however pressing the demands of his waiting customers. He did
not believe there would be any war; but in the event that the South should
"kick in the traces," as he expressed it, "our boys would only have to arm
themselves with brooms and go down there and give 'em a thrashing." This
_sweeping_ assertion was received with liberal applause by all of his
hearers, the impatient customers not excepted.
I hope I shall not detract from your favorable estimate of the grocer's
patriotism when I add that, being a dealer in brooms himself, he remarked
that he "would like nothing better than a contract to supply the
government with them." I hardly need mention the fact that the grocer was
a genuine specimen of the Yankee, and always kept an anchor to the
windward and his eyes wide open for the main chance. "They all did it"--in
war times.
I only mention this incident in illustration of the opinion which our
northern people generally had in the winter of '60 and '61 as to the
likelihood of a war with the South, and their estimate as to what would be
necessary to suppress a rebellion against the government in that section
of the country if, unfortunately, one should break out.
But, as we all know, the groceryman proved a false prophet. When the news
of the attack upon Fort Sumter came, it found me setting type in the
"Gazette and Chronicle" printing office in Pawtucket, where I had been
regularly employed as apprentice and journeyman since 1846. "All work and
no play" had made Jack a pretty dull boy indeed, and the war promised a
vacation, temporary or permanent, which I had long been seeking, and which
I at once made up my mind that I would avail myself of at the earliest
possible opportunity. As the war news became more and more interesting,
filling the paper nearly full every week to the exclusion of less
important matters, I became more and more determined to give the country
the benefit of my services. Very many of my associates had enlisted and
gone "to the front," and I could not satisfy myself with any good reason
for longer remaining at home when men were so much needed to defend the
honor of the old flag and assist in upholding the integrity of the
government in its day of greatest peril. In the language of that good old
hymn, I realized that
"I can but perish if I go,"
and said:
"I am resolved to try."
And I did. With what result will be seen.
I expected to encounter opposition at home, and consequently I kept my
plans to myself. A year had passed away, and yet I was not enrolled among
the "boys in blue." Three hundred thousand nine months' volunteers were
called for by President Lincoln, and proclamation was made that if the
necessary quota from each State was not filled by the fifteenth of August,
1862, a draft would be resorted to. I concluded to step in out of the
draft. War meetings were held almost every night in the old Armory Hall on
High street in Pawtucket. I was a regular attendant in the capacity of
reporter for the newspaper upon which I was employed. The speakers were
generally men past middle life, whose principal business seemed to be to
urge the young men to volunteer, and not to volunteer themselves. One
evening, for some reason, there was a dearth of speakers, and after a
while some one in the audience called out my name, and soon the call
became so loud and so general that I was compelled to respond. I ascended
the platform, and, as nearly as I can remember, I spoke as follows: "Young
men, one thing has especially impressed me this evening. Every speaker who
has preceded me has said to you, '_Go!_' Now, boys, I say _Come!_" and
turning to a recruiting officer who sat on my right, I said, "Put my name
down!" I think it was the shortest speech I ever made; at any rate, I know
it was the best received. There seemed to be no bounds to the enthusiasm
which was manifested, and the recruiting business in Pawtucket at once
received a "boom."
After the meeting was over and congratulations were ended, I went home.
Now began the "tug of war." The house was silent--very silent--and so was
I. I didn't sleep much that night. In my wakefulness I concluded not to
say anything to my family about what I had done, but leave her to learn
the news from some other source. But this little scheme was upset very
early in the morning by the lady of the house asking me concerning the war
meeting of the previous evening, and the names of the speakers. After
giving her such general information as I possessed, I hesitatingly
informed her that she had had the honor of entertaining one of the
speakers over night. Woman like, she then wanted to know if anybody
enlisted. Things were getting pretty close home now. The ice must be
broken. I told her that several persons enlisted, and gave her the names
of some of them; and, after a moment's hesitation, I said, "I don't know
what you will think, or say, when I tell you that I was one of them, and
that I am going to the war." Judge of my surprise, and of my own
depreciated estimate of what I had previously considered my great
patriotism, when she exclaimed, "_Well, all I have got to say is, that if
I had been a man, I should have gone long ago_." The ice was pretty
effectually broken now, and what I feared might prove a council of war,
was turned into a council of peace. That speech settled the whole business
for me, and I was ready, yea, anxious, to shoulder my musket and go "to
the front" immediately; in fact, I wished I had gone before. Woman's work
in the war! I fear it has not been fully appreciated or justly
acknowledged. The patriotism, the heroism and the sacrifice were not
confined to the soldiers. They knew little of the inexpressible longings,
the fears, the prayers, the yearning hopes, the terrible suspense, of
those at home who loved them. What pen can truthfully describe the weary
watching and waiting of the wives and mothers, the daughters and sisters,
during those long four years of fire and blood? God bless them, one and
all!
Several weeks elapsed between the time of enlistment and going into camp.
At last we were ordered to report on Dexter Training Ground, in
Providence, the name of the camp being "Camp Stevens," in honor of Major
General Isaac Ingalls Stevens, who was killed September 1st, 1862, in the
battle of Chantilly, Virginia, while leading his division in a charge. To
very many of the members of the regiment, their first military experience
began on Camp Stevens, and truthfulness to history compels me to add that
with no small number of the enlisted men it ended there, they being unable
to "pass muster," or, in other words, to endure the severe ordeal to which
they were subjected by the chief mustering officer, Captain William
Silvey, of the regular army. I had entertained fears from the start that I
would be "thrown out" on account of a supposed pulmonary difficulty. I
"braced up" as best I could for the examination. Captain Silvey looked me
squarely in the face as I stood in line, and placing one of his hands upon
my breast, he struck with the other a blow which seemed hard enough to
fell an ox, and then remarked "All right!" I could not have been made more
happy than I was by his decision if he had knocked me down. He settled one
thing at any rate which had long been a disputed question in our family,
namely, that my breathing apparatus was "all right."
After the examinations were concluded, the "lucky ones" were sworn in and
marched down to the quartermaster's department to receive their
equipments. The "pride, pomp and circumstance of glorious war" had never
possessed any great charm for me. I had belonged to an engine company and
a Sunday-school, but never to a military company; in fact, until I went on
to Camp Stevens I do not remember ever to have had a musket in my hand.
This will serve to explain why, when all of the members of my company had
been supplied with arms, the officer in command called attention to the
fact that I had my gun wrong side before, my hand grasping the lock or
hammer instead of the "guard." The suggestion that I should join the
"awkward squad" was sufficiently exasperating to have almost induced me to
throw up my commission.
But a still further humiliation was in store for me. At our first drill in
the manual of arms, among the other orders given was, "ram cartridge,"
when the officer in charge discovered that I had inserted the wrong end of
the ramrod into the muzzle of the gun, I having found the hollow space in
the large end very convenient in which to insert the ball of my little
finger in sending the imaginary cartridge to its destination. Fortunately
for me, no further opportunities for demonstrating my fitness for
promotion in the "awkward squad" were furnished me, and my leisure hours
were spent in acquiring proficiency in drill. How well I succeeded will
appear.
While we were on Camp Stevens we had a great many visitors. Among those
whom I shall ever remember was that "grand, square and upright" citizen of
Pawtucket, Charley Chickering. It so happened that the day he visited us,
I was performing guard duty around the camp. I noticed that my portly
friend, as he paraded up and down the sidewalk opposite me, seemed deeply
interested in my movements. Presently he came across the street and walked
alongside of me awhile as I paced my beat back and forth. He was silent.
So was I. But at length that ominous chuckle of his began to be heard, or
perhaps I should say a series of chuckles, which all who are acquainted
with him so well know always precedes his quaint and original utterances.
I fancied that my martial air and my dexterity in handling my musket,
although I knew it did bob around considerably when carried at "support,"
or perpendicularly, was to evoke from my old friend and schoolmate a
compliment. But judge of my surprise when instead he opened upon me as
follows, his every word being punctuated with one of those peculiar
chuckles to which I have referred: "Nickerson,--I--admire--your--
patriotism,--but--I--swear--I--can't--compliment--you--on--your--
soldierly--bearing."
I confess that I experienced considerable difficulty in learning to keep
step, but, like the raw Irish recruit, I stoutly maintained that the
trouble was with "the other b'ys; they wouldn't kape step wid me."