Nicholasville, Ky. We
are again enjoying the quiet of camp life. Our miniature tents are pitched in
regular order, streets are policed and brigade guards posted to keep our unruly
boys within bounds.
Colonel Luce, five
line officers and twenty privates have gone home on furlough—others to
Cincinnati on leave of absence. Everything indicates a period of rest. Our boys
are trying to make up for their privations "down below." Nearly every
tent presents the appearance of a market for the sale of fruit or vegetables.
Potatoes, peaches,
apples, cabbages, onions, watermelons and green corn are piled in heaps or lie
around loose throughout the camp. Then we have artists, too. Two Daguerian cars
are running full blast, where the boys get indifferent pictures at one dollar
each. I saw a great curiosity today—a relic of bygone ages. About a mile from
camp there is a shop where the old-fashioned spinning wheel is manufactured on
quite an extensive scale, and they find a ready sale. This is a fair index to
the progress of the people. Their manners, forms of speech and customs all
point to past ages. They are very loyal and very friendly when sober, but when
filled with corn whiskey, hypocrisy and self-interest take a back seat, and
they speak their real sentiments with a frankness and fluency that is not at
all flattering to us "Yanks." From what I have seen, I conclude all
Kentuckians drink whiskey. There are distilleries in every little town, where
the "genuine article" is turned out. I called at a farm house
one day for a drink of water. The good woman was catechising her son—a lad of
ten or twelve years about ten cents she had given him with which to buy some
little notion at the store. She gave me a drink of water, then, turning to the
young hopeful, angrily inquired, "But where's that ten cents I gave
you?" "I guv five cents to Bill." "Where's the other five?"
"Bought my dram with it." The explanation appeared satisfactory.
SOURCE: David Lane,
A Soldier's Diary: The Story of a Volunteer, 1862-1865, pp. 78-9
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