camp Near TennallytowN, Maryland, September 5, 1862.
I wrote you a hasty
scrawl in my hurried visit to Washington, just to assure you of our safety at
last. That was Wednesday. We went into camp near Fort Albany, and within a
mile of the Long Bridge. Yesterday we got marching orders again; crossed the
Potomac at Georgetown, and came out here on the Edwards's Ferry and Darnestown
road, about eight miles, and are now in camp. . . . .
We suppose that we
are to go up the river towards Edwards's Ferry. You would, perhaps, like to
have a record of our life since we occupied the line of the Rappahannock till
to-day. It has been so tense and corrosive that I am not yet in tone to write
an account of it. Our week on the Rappahannock was a series of marches,
countermarches, vigils, pickets, wet bivouacs, always within sound, often
within reach, of the enemy's cannon, moving under the hissing importunity of
flying shells and round shot. One morning at Beverly Ford we took a position
from which our forces had been driven two previous days. Colonel Andrews and I
breakfasted under a tree with shell and round shot moving merrily about us. We
held the position. On Monday night we lay under arms within half a mile of the
battle in which Kearney and Stevens fell, near Fairfax Court-House. The fight
was a fierce one. During most of it a violent thunderstorm raged fearfully. I
can only leave you to imagine the scene. We were all night under arms, wet
through, and without fires. The worst night I ever spent. Tuesday night we came
in last over the Warrenton Pike, — the very tail of the Grand Army, as we had
been before.
Our risks and chances
have been great, but we were not in either of the fights about Manassas or Bull
Run. I am glad of it. Unsuccessful battles we have had enough of. I have been
too busy to get news of Charley. We have been on the march for eighteen days.
Colonel Taylor's account of the matter was encouraging. I met him by chance on
Tuesday. Inquired at once for Charley. His answer was, “He is on his way to
Richmond.” I was taken aback. Under all the circumstances, you may regard him
as lucky.
I hope he will be
paroled without being taken to Richmond.
Our recruits have
had a hard time. It is an illustration of the folly of our whole system of
organization and recruiting, that we should have dragged one hundred and
fourteen unarmed recruits through all this business. But I will not
begin about follies. The events of the past three weeks are incredible.
Disaster, pitiable, humiliating, contemptible! Love to all at home. Now that we
are in Maryland, I suppose the absurd order stopping the mails will be
rescinded. I shall write again as soon as I can.
SOURCE: Elizabeth
Amelia Dwight, Editor, Life and Letters of Wilder Dwight: Lieut.-Col. Second
Mass. Inf. Vols., p. 285-7
