As we had the first choice, we got, on the whole, the best site for a
camp. We occupy the villa and farm of Dr. Stone, two miles due north of
Willard's Hotel. I assume that hotel as a peculiarly American point of
departure, and also because it is the hub of Washington,--the centre of
an eccentric, having the White House at the end of its shorter, and the
Capitol at the end of its longer radius,--moral, so they say, as well
as geometrical.
Sundry dignitaries, Presidents and what not, have lived here in times
gone by. Whoever chose the site ought to be kindly remembered for his
good taste. The house stands upon the pretty terrace commanding the
plain of Washington. From the upper windows we can see the Potomac
opening southward like a lake, and between us and the water ambitious
Washington stretching itself along and along, like the shackly files of
an army of recruits.
Oaks love the soil of this terrace. There are some noble ones on the
undulations before the house. It may be permitted even for one who is
supposed to think of nothing but powder and ball to notice one of these
grand trees. Let the ivy-covered stem of the Big Oak of Camp Cameron
take its place in literature! And now enough of scenery. The landscape
will stay, but the troops will not. There are trees and slopes of
green-sward elsewhere, and shrubbery begins to blossom in these bright
days of May before a thousand pretty homes. The tents and the tent-life
are more interesting for the moment than objects which cannot decamp.
The old villa serves us for head-quarters. It is a respectable place,
not without its pretensions. Four granite pillars, as true grit as if
the two Presidents Adams had lugged them on their shoulders all the way
from Quincy, Mass., make a carriage-porch. Here is the Colonel in the
big west parlor, the Quartermaster and Commissary in the rooms with
sliding-doors on the east, the Hospital upstairs, and so on. Other
rooms, numerous as the cells in a monastery, serve as quarters for the
Engineer Company. These dens are not monastic in aspect. The house is,
of course, a Certosa, so far as the gentler sex are concerned; but no
anchorites dwell here at present. If the Seventh disdained everything
but soldiers' fare,--which it does not,--common civility would require
that it should do violence to its disinclination for comfort and luxury,
and consume the stores sent down by ardent patriots in New York. The
cellars of the villa overflow with edibles, and in the greenhouse is a
most appetizing array of barrels, boxes, cans, and bottles, shipped here
that our Sybarites might not sigh for the flesh-pots of home. Such trash
may do very well to amuse the palate in these times of half-peace,
half-hostility; but when
"war, which for a space does fail,
Shall doubly thundering swell the gale,"
then every soldier should drop gracefully to the simple ration, and
cease to dabble with frying-pans. Cooks to their aprons, and soldiers to
their guns!
Our tents are pitched on a level clover-field sloping to the front
for our parade-ground. We use the old wall tent without a fly. It is
necessary to live in one of these awhile to know the vast superiority of
the Sibley pattern. Sibley's tent is a wrinkle taken from savage life.
It is the Sioux buffalo-skin, lodge, or _Tepee_, improved,--a cone
truncated at the top and fitted with a movable apex for ventilation. A
single tent-pole, supported upon a hinged tripod of iron, sustains the
structure. It is compacter, more commodious, healthier, and handsomer
than the ancient models. None other should be used in permanent
encampments. For marching troops, the French _Tente d'abri_ is a capital
shelter.
Still our fellows manage to be at home as they are. Some of our
model tents are types of the best style of temporary cottages. Young
housekeepers of limited incomes would do well to visit and take heed. A
whole elysium of household comfort can be had out of a teapot,--tin; a
brace of cups,--tin; a brace of plates,--tin; and a frying-pan.
In these days of war everybody can see a camp. Every one who stays at
home has a brother or a son or a lover quartered in one of the myriad
tents that have blossomed with the daffodil-season all over our green
fields of the North. I need not, then, describe our encampment in
detail,--its guard-tent in advance,--its guns in battery,--its
flagstaff,--its companies quartered in streets with droll and fanciful
names,--its officers' tents in the rear, at right angles to the lines of
company-tents,--its kitchens, armed with Captain Vielé's capital army
cooking-stoves,--its big marquees, "The White House" and "Fort Pickens,"
for the lodging and messing of the new artillery company,--its barbers'
shops,--its offices. The same, more or less well arranged, can be seen
in all the rendezvous where the armies are now assembling. Instead of
such description, then, let me give the log of a single day at our camp.