CAMP MILLINGTON, BALTIMORE.
From the time of our home-coming and the royal welcome given us by the 150th, I
have only made notes which I will try now to write out. Nothing out of the
ordinary routine of a soldier's life in camp has transpired. I am getting more
and more used to this, and the trifling occurrences that at first made such
deep impressions are soon forgotten now. Still, as some one may read this who
will never know of the details of a soldier's life in any other way, I shall
try and keep to my promise to tell the whole story.
The box of good
things that was mentioned in the letter I received while we lay in the street
at Baltimore, waiting for a train to take us to Gettysburg, came a few days
after our return to camp. In it was a great big package for me. I opened it and
there lay the roasted body of our old Shanghai rooster. He was minus head, feet
and feathers, but I knew him the minute I laid eyes on him.
I at once began to
figure how many stomachs like ours he would fill, and then gave out that many
invitations. All came, and brought their plates. With mouths watering, they
stood about as I prepared to carve.
At the first cut I
thought I smelled something, and at the next was sure I did. The old fellow,
tough as he was, was not able to stand close confinement in such hot weather,
and had taken on an odor that took away all appetite for roast chicken.
Terribly disappointed, we wrapped him up again, and taking him out of camp,
gave him as near a military funeral as we knew how. He was a brave old bird. I
have seen him whip Cuff, mother's little guardian of the garden patch. "He
sleeps his last sleep. He has fought his last battle. No sound shall awake him
to glory again."
Requests for passes
to visit the camp of the 150th are the pests of the commanding officers of our
regiment, and the same can be said of the 150th. As soon as guard-mount is
over, and the other details for camp duty made, the old guard (those who were
on duty the day before, and who are excused from all duty except dress parade
for the next twenty-four hours) try for a pass to visit the city or the 150th,
the two attractions now. John Van Alstyne often visits me, as well as others
with him with whom I am well acquainted. These visits I return as often as I
can get away. Our camp ground has been laid out in regular order and the
company streets graded and made to look very respectable. There is a broad
street, along one side of which are the officers' tents, the colonel's in the
center. Back of these are the quartermaster's and the commissary's stores, the
sutler's tent and the mules and horses. In front of the colonel's tent is the
flag-staff, and running out from the street are ten shorter streets, one for
each company, with cook-houses or tents at the bottom. Men are detailed every
day to clean up and keep in order all these and are called supernumeraries.
When it rains we that are not on duty lie in our tents and amuse ourselves in
any way we can, or visit from tent to tent as the fancy takes us. In fair
weather we have either company-drill or battalion-drill, and every now and then
the regiments are put together for brigade-drill. Any of it is hard work, but
it is what we are here for, and we find little fault. The weather is chilly. I
notice but little difference in the weather here and as we usually have it at
home. There we expect it, while here we do not and that I suppose makes it seem
harder to put up with.
One of our company,
Elmer Anderson, deserted and enlisted in an artillery regiment a few days ago.
He came into camp showing his papers and was arrested and put in the
guard-house. What the outcome will be I don't know, but it seems as if there
should be some way of preventing such things. Sunday mornings we have what we
call knapsack-drill. Why they save this for Sunday I don't know, but I suppose
there is some reason for it. We pack our knapsacks, brush up our guns, clothes,
shoes, etc., and march to the drill ground and form in columns by companies.
Company A on the right and B on the left. This brings Company A in front and
the first company to be inspected, after which they march back to camp and are
through for the day. Company B being the last, it is something like an hour we
stand there with our knapsacks open before us on the ground, everything in them
exposed to view of the passer-by, who is the inspection officer and the captain
whose company he is inspecting. With his sword tip he pokes over our
belongings, and if any dirty socks or handkerchief or any other article a
soldier ought not to have is found, a lesson is read to him on the spot and
repeated in plainer terms by the captain afterwards. As we must take everything
we own or have it stolen while we are away, we take a great many chances. I
shall never forget the first inspection. We knew nothing of what was coming,
and such an outfit as that inspection officer saw I don't think any other one
ever did. Little by little we learn the lesson, learn to put the best on top,
for not all knapsacks have their contents stirred up. A great deal of allowance
was made for us at first, but as we go along the screws of discipline are
slowly but surely turned on, and finally I suppose it will be easy to obey.
That one word, "obey," seems to be all that is required of us. No
matter how unreasonable an order seems to us, we have only to obey it or get in
trouble for not doing it.
SOURCE:
Lawrence Van Alstyne, Diary of an Enlisted Man, p. 54-7
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