December 14, 1864
General Winthrop
[in speaking of Warren's operations] said his brigade bivouacked in a
cornfield; it blew, snowed and sleeted all night, and when reveille beat in the
morning, you could only see what seemed a field full of dead bodies, each
covered with a rubber blanket and encased with ice. Some of the men had to kick
and struggle, they were so hard frozen down. Yet, despite this, I have not
learned that it has caused much sickness. How would you like to carry forty or
fifty pounds all day, be wet through, have your feet soaked with mud and
snow-water, and then go to sleep in a cornfield, with a drifting sleet coming
down on you all night? This is what twenty-five thousand men did, for more than
one night, on that expedition. This is what our poor slovenly ragamuffins can
do; and this it is to be a good soldier. The Rebels are still tougher, if
anything. Being still in love with the new picket line, which has been
established in our rear, I again went down what is called the Church road,
until I struck the infantry pickets, near a Colonel Wyatt's house. This once
was a well-to-do establishment. The house is large and a huge cornfield testifies
that he (or our cavalry) had gathered a good harvest that very year. There were
the usual outbuildings of a well-to-do southern farmer: little log barns, negro
huts, and odd things that might be large hencoops or small pigstyes. The
Virginians have a great passion for putting up a great lot of diminutive
structures as a kind of foil to the main building, which, on the contrary, they
like to have as extensive as possible; just as the old painters added
importance to a big saint by making a number of very small devotees, kneeling
below him. A stout old gent, in a shocking bad beaver, who was walking about in
the back yard was, I presume, the distinguished Colonel. Having stared at the
house and been in turn stared at by a pretty little girl who threw up a window,
to have a more clear view of the Yank, I went, still along the Church road,
till I got to the Weldon road.
A picket line is
always one of the most picturesque sights in an army, when it runs through
woods and fields. You know it consists of a string of “posts,” each of half a
dozen men, or so, and, in front of these, a chain of sentries who are
constantly on the alert. The squads of men make to themselves a gipsy
bough-house in front of which they make a fire in cool weather. They must
always have their belts on and be ready to fight at a moment's notice. In the
woods, you follow along from one rustic shelter to another, and see the
sentries, out in front, each standing behind a good tree and keeping a sharp
lookout for Rebel scouts, bushwhackers and cavalry. A short distance in the
rear you from time to time come on a “reserve,” which is a large body, perhaps
of fifty or a hundred, who are concealed and who are ready to come to the
assistance of the posts, if they are attacked. Picket duty is, of all others,
that which requires most individual intelligence in the soldiers. A picket
line, judiciously posted, in woods or swamps, will oppose a formidable
resistance, even to a line of battle. There was careful Mr. Corps, officer of
the day, with his crimson scarf across his shoulder, inspecting his outposts
and reserves; each one falling in as he came along and standing at a shoulder.
SOURCE: George R. Agassiz, Editor, Meade’s
Headquarters, 1863-1865: Letters of Colonel Theodore Lyman from the Wilderness
to Appomattox, p. 300-2
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