I had a time getting the men out this morning when starting
around the brigade to relieve the second relief, some refusing to come out of
their tents. I finally started with what guards I had, and when I came to a
guard for whom I had no man as relief, I told him to fall in behind and go to
the guard tent, thus leaving his beat vacant. After I had made the round, I
went to the tents of the absentees and ordered them out, each to his own beat
number, adding that if they refused I would have them arrested and put in the
guardhouse. I went to one chap's tent the third and last time, and I tell you
he did some lively stepping to reach his beat. He was a member of the Sixteenth
Iowa. Our muster rolls and discharge papers were all finished today and the
accounts with the regimental quartermaster were all squared up; everything has
now been inspected and reported ready for mustering out. All the property
belonging to the quartermaster will be turned over to him tomorrow morning.
Some of the boys in the regiment have bought their Springfield rifles of the
Government, paying $7.00 for them. I bought my rifle, as did more than half of
the boys of Company E. These are the rifles we received at Cairo, Illinois, in
May, 1864. We are entitled to our knapsacks, haversacks and canteens, and of
course are taking them with us.
Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B.,
Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 287
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