Once more we are on
the wing. Yesterday morning we were ordered to be ready to march when called
on. Of course, the men do not expect to stay anywhere, but it always comes a
little tough to leave a pleasant camp just as they get comfortably settled. But
military orders are inexorable, and, in spite of regrets, we "struck
tents, slung knapsacks," and started on our winding way among the hills.
This part of the country is made up of ranges of high hills separated by
ravines down which the water has cut channels from ten to twenty feet deep. We
marched about three miles on the road leading to Vicksburg and halted on the
top of a high hill just large enough to hold our regiment. It was plowed last
spring and planted to cotton. Colonel Luce looked indignant, the company
officers grumbled, the men swore. General Welch regretted, but Major General
Parks ordered the left to rest here, and it rested. But Colonel Luce could
still do something. Ordering us in line, he said: "Men, you need not pitch
your tents in line in this open field; go where you can make yourselves most
comfortable, only be on hand when the bugle sounds." Three cheers and a
tiger for Colonel Luce. then a wild break for trees, brush; anything to shelter
us from the fierce rays of a Southern sun. We are now nine miles from Vicksburg
by the road, six miles in a direct line. We can distinctly hear musketry at
that place, which has been kept up almost incessantly the last three days. At
intervals the cannonading is terrific. Our Orderly Sergeant rode over there
yesterday, to see his brother. He says Grant's rifle pits are not more than
twenty-five rods from the Rebels, and woe to the man on either side who exposes
himself to the marksmanship of the other. As near as I can learn, matters
remain about as they were three weeks ago. Unless General Grant succeeds in
mining some of their works, thus affecting an entrance, he will be compelled to
starve them out.
We would think, in
Michigan, such land as this utterly unfit for cultivation. But the highest
hills are cultivated and planted with corn or cotton. Corn, even on the highest
hills, I have never seen excelled in growth of stalk. One would naturally
suppose that in this hilly country water of good quality would abound. Such is
not the fact. Soon as we broke ranks I started out in quest of water. I
followed a ravine about half a mile, then crossed over to another, but found
none. Blackberries being plentiful, I filled my cap and returned to camp. Some
of the boys had been more successful, and after resting a few minutes I took
another direction, for water we must have. This time I followed a ridge about
half a mile, then began to descend—down, down, I went, seemingly into the very
bowels of the earth, and when I reached the bottom found a stagnant pool of
warm, muddy water. Making a virtue of necessity, I filled my canteen, returned
to camp, made some coffee, ate my berries, with a very little hardtack, and
went to bed to dream of "limpid streams and babbling brooks."
This morning my
comrade and I arose with the early dawn and started out in search of berries,
which we found in great abundance.
A strange stillness
pervades our hitherto noisy and tumultous camp. The men are scattered in every
direction, lounging listlessly in the shade, not caring even to play cards, so
oppressive is the heat. I am sitting in the shade of a mulberry tree, Collier
lying on the ground near by; we alternately write or lounge as the mood takes
us. Most assuredly I never felt the heat in Michigan as I feel it here. Yet men
can work in this climate, and northern men, too. The Eighth and Twentieth have
been throwing up fortifications for several days.
SOURCE: David Lane,
A Soldier's Diary: The Story of a Volunteer, 1862-1865, p. 56-8
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