Muddy under foot, but sunshiny and warm; received a letter
from home; all well there; have not been very busy to-day; men working hard
building cabins in the new camp four or five hundred yards away; will probably
complete it in season to break camp in when the spring campaign opens. It's a
handsome camp, every cabin being exactly alike, commodious and is symmetrically
laid out, the handsomest I ever saw. But the Tenth Vermont leads the army in
such a way and is the pride of general officers from army headquarters down; it
is just the same in drill, parade, forced marching, fighting or any place it is
put. The men have great esprit de corps, and strive not to be outdone by
any other regiment in anything. Were it not that the men's minds are kept
occupied, I should doubt the expediency of putting so much work into a new camp
so late in the season, but they seem to enjoy it, so it's all right; it keeps
them healthy and hard, too; besides, they will be in splendid shape for the
campaign close at hand; there's no moon to-night but it's beautiful starlight;
bands are serenading at division headquarters. In the stillness of the night
the distance softens the splendid music and makes it enchanting. I sit outside
alone in deep thought and dream over it. War is such a strange companion!
SOURCE: Lemuel Abijah Abbott, Personal Recollections
and Civil War Diary, 1864, p. 33-4
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