Camp Hicks, December 11, 1861, near Frederick.
I am building a house this morning. It is well for a young
man to get settled in life; and to build house and keep house may, in general,
be stated as the sum of his whole temporal endeavor. My own achievement in this
direction will be rapid and decisive. Four trees, as scantling, a board floor
on them, and a surrounding pen four feet high, are now in progress. Over this pen
my tent will be pitched, and I can defy the storm. It is a structure thought
in the morning and acted before night. It is not firmly fixed on
earth, and so illustrates the frail tenure of our hold on this sunny camp,
again analogizing life itself. It is also just the size for one. In this,
perhaps, it is seriously defective, though, in a great part of the earnest endeavor
of life, it is not bad for man to be alone. At all events, no military
authority indicates a wife as a part of camp equipage. I have called my
immediate business housekeeping. Let it not be thought that a regiment is
without its domestic cares. They are manifold. To make the cook and the steward
harmonize is more difficult than to form the battalion in line of battle. I
should like much to greet you in my new house, and have a family party at the
house-warming.
We are moving, too, the question of a stable for one hundred
wagon-horses. It is a question that will settle itself shortly. We
procrastinate it naturally through this warm weather; but the cold will soon
snap us up again, and then we shall go to work at it. But this uncertainty of
the future, which every rumor aggravates, does not favor preparation. Political
economists, you know, tell us that a secure confidence in the quiet enjoyment
of the fruits of industry is a condition of all industrial development, and
without it there is no wealth. We are illustrating that maxim. “No winter
quarters,” says McClellan. “Onward!” howl the politicians. “You must not draw
lumber or boards,” echoes the quartermaster. Such is our dilemma. I am
attempting both horns by my extempore device of half house, half tent.
I did not finish my house yesterday, but this (Thursday)
evening I am writing at my new table in my new house. It is perfectly jolly. I
take great pride in my several ingenious devices for bed, washstand, front door
(a sliding door), &c., &c. I had four carpenters detailed from the
regiment. They gradually got interested in the work, and wrought upon it with
love. The dimensions are nine feet square, and the tent just stretches down
square over it.
My little stove is humming on the hearth as blithely as
possible. I received last night your pleasant letter of Monday, the first which
has come direct to Frederick. This gives cheerful assurance of a prompt mail. .
. . .
So will be settled before Christmas. He is to be congratulated.
He has opened for himself a large sphere of duty and usefulness. This is enough
to kindle the endeavor and invigorate the confidence, and so he is fortunate..
. . . .
We have had the development, since our arrival here, of one
of those little tragedies that thrill a man with pain. A young man, who came
out as a new recruit with Captain Abbott to our unlucky camp at Seneca, was
down, low down, with typhoid fever when we were ready to march. Our surgeon
decided it unsafe to move him, and so he was left in the temporary hospital at
Darnestown, in charge of the surgeon there. After we left, the brigade surgeon
of the brigade decided to move the hospital at once; packed the poor
boy, mercilessly, into a canal-boat with the rest; took him up to Point of
Rocks, and thence by rail to Frederick; spent nearly thirty-six hours on the
way, distance thirty miles. When the boy arrived here he was almost gone.
Neglect, exposure, disease, had worked their perfect work.
It is said, and I see no reason to doubt the statement, that
his feet were frozen when he was taken from the cars! He died
soon after his arrival. You may have seen that the newspapers have got hold of
that disgraceful blundering in transporting the sick to Washington. I must have
spoken of it in a former letter.
I consider the Medical Director guilty of the death of our
young soldier just as much as if he had deliberately left him alone to starve.
It is such incidents as this that expose the inefficiency of
our whole hospital organization. Alas! almost every department is equally listless
and incapable. But the sufferings of the sick soldier appeal more directly to
the heart than other shortcomings.
Since we have been in camp here we have had a court-martial
vigorously at work punishing all the peccadilloes of the march, and the indiscretions
consequent upon a sudden exposure to the temptations of civilization and
enlightenment, — to wit, whiskey.
In my tour of duty yesterday, as field-officer of the day, I
found that one of the guard posted in the village of Newmarket had stopped a pedler's
cart, and seized a quantity of whiskey intended to sell to soldiers. The pedler
was quite ingenious. He packed first a layer of pies, then a layer of
whiskey-bottles, and so on. His barrel looked as innocent as a sucking dove on
top, but was full of the sucking serpent within. I ordered him to be taken out
in the middle of the main street, to have his hat taken off, his offence
proclaimed to the people, and the whiskey destroyed. It was quite an effective,
and, I hope, terror-striking penalty. . . . .
It is now Friday morning, — bright, but cool. This fine
weather is happiness in itself.
SOURCE: Elizabeth Amelia Dwight, Editor, Life and
Letters of Wilder Dwight: Lieut.-Col. Second Mass. Inf. Vols., p. 169-72
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