camp Near Edinburg, April 6, 1862.
It might be a June morning, by its sunshine and warmth. This
broken valley, the “interval” of two sharp, dark-wooded ranges of cuts, itself
broken and furrowed by impatient “runs,” as they call every water-flow in
Virginia, might be a fitting scene for a pleasure journey. All the air
might a Sabbath stillness hold, but another solemn influence is
everywhere present. Within a mile of our quiet camp the outposts of two armies
are watching one another. The cannon and rifle tone break the silence now and
then. If you go down to our line of pickets, you will see the men watching with
eager though patient eyes for a good shot; and as the smoke breaks from
some cover on the opposite bank of the stream, you may hear a ball whistle near
you, and some sentry near by will send his quick reply. I had quite an animated
day yesterday. As field-officer of the day, I had charge of our line of
outposts. I found in the morning that the Rebel pickets were quite importunate
and vexatious. I also thought it important to change the position of some of
our pickets; and, in order to do so, desired to reconnoitre the ground. I was
soon interrupted in my quiet use of my field-glass by the whistle of bullets
following the crack of rifles. The devils had probably worked down through the
ravines. I moved my horse quietly under cover of a small house, and could
listen to the sound without exposing any other sense. I soon changed my
position; and thought, that, as the road went quite too close to the river, I
would take the field. But I had not gone far in that direction when a rapid
volley assailed me from behind a straw-rick, and I was again led to turn back,
more especially as some of the shots seemed to be from some quarter quite too
near for security. That is the working of these Rebels. They work themselves
into safe covers, and pop away. Even their artillery, from which we have three
or four attacks every day, is often so masked that even the smoke fails to
disclose it. I leaped my horse over a fence, and made arrangements for my
picket on a line a little less exposed. But you can get some idea of the
persistency of the devils. They seem to act with a bitter personal hate and
venom. In my ride yesterday afternoon I came to a house about which there was a
gathering of curious soldiers. The poor woman was in great trouble. The Rebel
battery had just thrown two shells through the house, shattering windows and
plastering, &c. She was in terror, and her husband was away serving in the
army whose missiles had terrified her. “Pa is pressed into the militia,” said
the little boy to me. “He's gone away to New Market.” Yet these people explain
their misfortunes by our invasion, not by their rebellion. “I
wish you'd move your men away or stop their firing,” said a young girl to me at
a farm-house. “Our boys'll shell the house sure, if you don't take care.”
They cling to their allegiance to their flying army, — and why shouldn't they?
It is made up of their brothers and sons and lovers. We find very few men.
Indeed, their practical conscription leaves nothing male and able-bodied
out of the ranks.
But I must not omit to tell you of my revenge on the men who
fired at me. The straw-rick stood just in front of a barn. From the hill on
which a section of our battery was posted it was a good mark. On my return to
that point I directed a few shell to be thrown there. With lucky aim two of
them struck the barn itself; and their explosion had, at least, the result to
scatter the men within, who were seen to run back to the woods.
We hear an odd story of an incident in the battle at
Winchester. It shows that the Second Regiment has a name in this valley.
Probably its long continuance here, and the fact that a flag was given to it at
Harper's Ferry, have attracted Rebel attention to it. It is said by some of the
soldiers who were in the battle, that when one of the Ohio regiments was broken
by the Rebel fire, and faltered a little, some of the Rebels jumped up from the
corner of their stone-wall and shouted, “Where's Gordon's bloody Second? Bring
it on.” A good deal of curiosity was also expressed by the Rebel wounded and
prisoners to know about the regiment, and if it was here. They might any of
them have seen it the other day if they would only have waited!
It seems that the Rebels swell their numbers now by a
systematic and general compulsion. Such troops will only be an embarrassment to
them, I think. But their unscrupulous tyranny spares nothing. An old free negro
woman, living in a small hut near our camp, says, “They took away my son last
summer to Manassas, and I've had a hard winter without him; but they left me my
young son, a poor cripple boy. The other day they come and took him, and my
horse and wagon to carry off their sick. He's a poor, weak boy, and all I've
got, but they wouldn't spare him to me. I can't help it, but I feel more kind
to you all whom I never saw than to them that I was born among.” So she talked
on sadly of her troubles.
Look at another picture of this free and happy people, with
their patriarchal institutions. Colonel Gordon stopped for the night at a house
near Snicker's Ferry. The master was out of the room, and a mulatto slave woman
was busy about the table. “You are happy, are you not?” says Colonel G. “No,”
with a dull, whining, sad tone in her reply. “Your master's kind to you, isn't
he?” “No, he sold my mother fifteen years ago.” That memory and loss had been
her life and sorrow for fifteen years, and it would last. Pretty pictures of
pastoral content!
“Do not take my corn and grain,” says Mr. Ransom, of
Charlestown, a courtly Virginian gentleman. “I've a large family of negroes
dependent on me, and I must have enough left to feed them, and to take care of
my horses and cows till spring. My poor servants will starve.”
The army moves on; a week passes, and Mr. Ransom may be seen
taking care of his single remaining cow and horse. His dependent servants have
taken care of themselves, and Mr. Ransom is rubbing his eyes over the abrupt
lightening of his burdens. Let us clear our minds of cant, — pro or anti
slavery. There is full as much of the former cant as of the latter.
It was Sunday when I began this letter; it is now Monday. We
make no movement yet. The Rebel shells have not been thrown among us for a
whole day! so life is a little monotonous.
SOURCE: Elizabeth Amelia Dwight, Editor, Life and
Letters of Wilder Dwight: Lieut.-Col. Second Mass. Inf. Vols., p. 227-30
