Camp Brightwood, June I, 1863.
I am cross; — “rumpled and harassed” don't begin to express
my condition. I feel as if I were playing soldier here, and that I always
disliked in peace, and disliked still more in war, — and now I'm doing it.
Now for narrative. Our move to-day was tolerably satisfactory,
no end of “bag and baggage,” certainly ten or twelve times as much as there
should have been; but we broke up a permanent camp, and reestablished it, and
had plenty of daylight to spare. We are now near Fort Stevens, about four miles
north of Washington, on rough ground thickly studded with oak stumps; not so
pretty a site as our last, but much healthier; we do not present so attractive
an outside to visitors, but in reality are probably better off. I have two
companies and a half on picket at points fifteen miles apart, and am expecting
some night alarms, knowing it to be all play and got up for drill purposes. I
would much prefer to drill my men for the present in my own way, not in General
Heintzelman's way, hence I am cross, — it is very unmilitary to be cross.
I foresee that this camp is going to be a very cross place,
— rough camps always are, — they are so hard to keep clean. It is astonishing
how much easier it is to make men do their military duty than it is to make
them appreciate neatness and cleanness.
SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of
Charles Russell Lowell, p. 251-2
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