Monday morning. Our first
night in Baltimore is over. We had roll-call, to see if we were all here, and
then spread our blankets on the ground and were soon sound asleep. Walt. Loucks
and I each having a blanket, we spread one on the ground and the other over us.
With our knapsacks for a pillow, we slept as sound as if in the softest bed.
The dew, however, was heavy, and only for the blanket over us we would have been
wet through. As it was, our hair was as wet as if we had been swimming.
Sleeping on the ground, in clothing already wet with sweat, and the night being
quite cool, has stiffened our joints, so we move about like foundered horses.
Had the Rebs come upon us when we first got up we couldn't have run away and we
certainly were not in a condition to defend ourselves. But this wore off after
a little, and we were ourselves again. As it was in Hudson, so it is here. All
sorts of rumors as to what we do next are going the rounds. I have given up
believing anything, and shall wait until we do something or go somewhere, and
then, diary, I'll tell you all about it.
Night. We put in the day
sitting around and swapping yarns, etc. None of us cared to go about, for we
were pretty tired, after our hard day yesterday. Shelter tents were given out
to-day. One tent for every two men. They are not tents at all, nothing but a
strip of muslin, with three sticks to hold them up. There are four pins to pin
the corners to the ground. Then one stick is put in like a ridge pole, and the
other two set under it. The ends are pinned down as far apart as a man is long,
and then the middle raised up. They may keep off rain, if it falls straight
down, but both ends are open, and two men fill it full. We have got them up,
each company in a row. It is a funny sight to stand on the high ground and look
over them. Lengthwise, it is like a long strip of muslin with what a dressmaker
calls gathers in it. Looked at from the side it is like a row of capital A's
with the cross up and down instead of crosswise.
SOURCE: Lawrence Van
Alstyne, Diary of an Enlisted Man, p.
20-1
No comments:
Post a Comment