Camp Ewing, November 9, 1861.
Dear Mother: —
It is a rainy disagreeable November day. I have done up all the little chores
required, have read the article in November number of the Atlantic Monthly on
“Health in Camp,” and hope not to be interrupted until I have finished a few
words to you.
I wish you could see how we live. We have clothing and
provisions in abundance, if men were all thrifty — food enough and good enough
in spite of unthrift. Blankets, stockings, undershirts, drawers, and shoes are
always welcome. These articles or substitutes are pretty nearly the only things
the soldiers' aid societies need to send. India-rubber or oilcloth capes, or
the like, are not quite abundant enough. Our tents are floored with loose
boards taken from deserted secession barns and houses. For warmth we have a few
stoves, but generally fires in trenches in front of the tents or in little
ovens or furnaces in the tents formed by digging a hole a foot deep by a foot
and a half wide and leading under the sides of the tent, the smoke passing up
through chimneys made of barrels or sticks crossed cob-house fashion, daubed
with mud.
There is not much suffering from cold or wet. The sickness
is generally camp fever — a typhoid fever not produced, I think, by any defect
in food, clothing, or shelter. Officers, who are generally more comfortably
provided than the privates, suffer quite as much as the men — indeed, rather
more in our regiment. Besides, the people residing here have a similar fever.
Exposure in the night and to bad weather in a mountain climate to which men are
not accustomed, seems to cause the sickness irrespective of all other
circumstances. We have nine hundred and twenty-five men and officers, of whom
two hundred and thirty are sick in camp, in hospitals in Virginia and in Ohio.
Less than one-fourth of the privates are sick. One-half the captains, and
one-half the lieutenants are or lately have been sick. Few are seriously or
dangerously sick. Almost all are able to walk about. Only five out of about as
many hundred cases have died. Three of them were very excellent men. Overwork
and an anxiety not [to] give up had much to do with the fatal nature of their
attacks. One was one of our best and hardiest captains, and one a most
interesting youngster who somehow always reminded me of Birch — Captain
Woodward, of Cleveland, and Bony Seaman, of Logan County.
I never was healthier in my life. I do not by any means
consider myself safe from the fever, however, if we remain in our present
location — higher up in the mountains than any other regiment. If I should find
myself having any of the symptoms, I shall instantly come home. Those who have
done so have all recovered within a week or two and been able to return to
duty. I do not notice any second attacks, although I suppose they sometimes
occur. Other regiments have had more deaths than we have had, but not generally
a larger sicklist.
Our men are extremely well-behaved, orderly, obedient, and
cheerful. I can think of no instance in which any man has ever been in the
slightest degree insolent or sullen in his manner towards me.
During the last week the enemy have made an attempt to
dislodge us from our position by firing shot and shell at our camps from the
opposite side of New River. For three days there was cannonading during the greater
part of daylight of each day. Nothing purporting to be warfare could possibly
be more harmless. I knew of two or three being wounded, and have heard that one
man was killed. They have given it up as a failure and I do not expect to see
it repeated.
Dr. Jim Webb came here a few days ago, on a dispatch from
the general, and will aid in taking charge of the sick in some part of the
army, not in our regiment. He brought many most acceptable knickknacks and
comforts from home. . . .
The newspapers do great mischief by allowing false and
exaggerated accounts of suffering here to be published. It checks enlistments.
The truth is, it is a rare thing for a good soldier to find much cause of
complaint. But I suppose the public are getting to understand this. I would not
say anything to stop benevolent people from contributing such articles of
clothing and bedding as I have described. These articles are always put to good
use. — Love to all.
Affectionately, your
son,
R. B. Hayes.
Mrs. Sophia Hayes.
SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and
Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 141-3
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