Major Wilder Dwight: July 31, 1861

MARYLAND HEIGHTS, DEP’T OF THE SHENANDOAH,

July 31, 1861, in Camp.

Three letters?! Yes, one from you, one from father, one from C. Blake, — all at once. The sun shines less fiercely, and the glaring afternoon has lost its power, or is forgotten. I write in the memory of yesterday. This morning the rattle of the rain-drops on my tent roused me before the regular reveillé of the drum, and I am writing now, after breakfast, to the same cool music. If you really like to listen to the monotony of our eventless experience, I cannot do less than to write it for you. Yesterday was a busy day. Battalion drill after breakfast, and then a ride with Colonel Gordon over the mountain to head-quarters. We climbed, by a rough path cut two months ago by the Rebels, to the very top of the mountain. There we found a picket from the Twelfth Massachusetts Regiment (Colonel Webster), and upon the lookout floated the American flag. After a wide survey and a view most glorious, we descended the other side of the mountain to head-quarters. There, business and a short chat with Major Doubleday, whose battery is there in position. By the new organization of brigades, Doubleday is in ours. He is of Fort Sumter fame, as you know, and is a fine fellow with a grand battery.

I wrote thus far yesterday evening, and was expecting a quiet rainy day, when out blazed the sun and kindled our work again. Rations were to be issued, &c., then, at noon, came the sudden order: “Pack wagons with everything, and prepare to bivouac for several days.” It seems head-quarters got frightened about our wagons. The road is so exposed that, in case of attack, they would certainly be lost. Our pretty encampment had to yield, therefore, to the necessities of war. It made a long afternoon, and when the tents were struck, the wagons loaded, and the balking and unwilling teams made to draw, we were enjoying another sunset. The men were sent into the woods to cut brush for huts, and there sprang up a camp of green leaves, as if by magic. I am now writing under a bower of chestnut leaves, and am quite fascinated by my new quarters. The inconvenience of sending off all your luggage, most of your bedding and camp furniture, is not a slight one. In the absence of other hardships and perils, one can make a hardship of that. Last night we had an animated time. Just after taps one of our pickets fired, and it turned out that a man was prowling through the bushes. Soon after an excited Indiana picket fired on our men in a small picket down the hill, and that kicked up a small bobbery. But the morning makes all quiet again. The mists are lifting from the river and hillsides, and the day is already started on its uncertain course again. The kitchen fires are smoking, the axes are ringing in the wood. “Jim along Josey,” or sick-call, has just sounded. The thoughts turn fondly on breakfast. Good by. Love to all.

SOURCE: Elizabeth Amelia Dwight, Editor, Life and Letters of Wilder Dwight: Lieut.-Col. Second Mass. Inf. Vols., p. 64-5