Major Wilder Dwight: August 15, 1861

department Shenandoah, Maryland Heights,

August 15, 1861.

I have, probably, just time, this morning, to report to you our progress. The cold and wet made our tents an absolute necessity to us, and so yesterday General Banks ordered them brought on to the hill. The bushes were swept away, and again the plain whitened with our tents; and, as if to celebrate the occasion, the dull sky broke, the sun came out, and at evening the band was playing in the moonlight, and we were in camp again. Only our tents were left by the wagons. The rest of the baggage prudently retired behind the hill before sunset.

Yesterday the accounts from down the river of skirmishings and of a movement of the enemy kept up a flight of lively rumors through the camps. Two of the pieces of our battery were taken down the hill, and there was a preparation for movement, if necessary. We heard nothing during the night, however, and this morning, as the mist rises, it does not disclose the rapid advance of cavalry or the frowning presence of angry batteries. It is odd, however, to notice how imaginative are the optics of some men in camp. They are always seeing the enemy. A wagonload of rails seems a squadron of cavalry. A large Monday's wash near the horizon is an encampment. A clump of firs with two cows and a flock of sheep are as many as a thousand infantry. Their heated fancy detects a heavy cannonading or the rattle of musketry in every sound. All these thick-coming fancies are dissipated by a correct ear, or resolved by a good glass. It is a part of our life.  . . . I am giving personal attention to every detail of feeding and clothing, and expect to get the system so organized that it must always work right. It does work so now, but, in the exigencies of service, there are hitches and rubs inevitable. To allow for friction in human affairs, and to overcome it, is a problem that, in all new enterprises, has to be learned out of practical, experimental teachings.

What an outrage it is that the newspaper reporters cannot be checked! Yesterday's New York Times contains a full statement of number and strength of the regiments with this Division. These papers go South freely. Think what it would be to us if we could have daily papers from the South with statements of their forces, positions, and movements. It would give certainty to what is now the chief element of uncertainty. But the South does not allow the printing of such information, and would not let it come North if it did. I do not see how we can succeed, if we do

not take the obvious precaution of military affairs.  . . . I must go and see about a survey of condemned bread, about an issue of new shoes, about drill, &c., &c.  . . . We are building a road over the mountain fit for the passage of artillery and wagons. That keeps two companies busy every day.

SOURCE: Elizabeth Amelia Dwight, Editor, Life and Letters of Wilder Dwight: Lieut.-Col. Second Mass. Inf. Vols., p. 73-4