Diary of Corporal Lawrence Van Alstyne: November 1, 1862

Have sent home my diary and am beginning another. I must be more brief, for the great mass just sent off covers but little ground and will tire the patience of any who read it. A cold I took the night we lay in Baltimore seems determined to make me sick. I have quite a sore throat and some days feel as if I must give up. Dr. Cook of the 150th has seen me and thinks I should be reported to our doctor. There is talk of our going farther south and I hope we may, for the ground is getting pretty cold here.

SOURCE:  Lawrence Van Alstyne, Diary of an Enlisted Man, p. 57

Major-General Henry W. Slocum to Major-General George G. Meade, December 30, 1863

HDQRS. TWELFTH CORPS, ARMY OF THE CUMBERLAND,        

Tullahoma, Tenn., December 30, 1863.

Maj. Gen. GEORGE G. MEADE,
        Commanding Army of the Potomac:

GENERAL: I inclose herewith the report of General T. H. Ruger of operations of the First Division, Twelfth Corps, at the battle of Gettysburg, together with the reports of his brigade and regimental commanders. General Ruger, width a large portion of his division, was ordered to New York City soon after the battle, and immediately after his return from New York the corps was ordered to this department. The reports of General Williams and myself were delayed with the hope of receiving General Ruger's report in time to forward it with them.

I deeply regret the necessity which compelled me to send my report and that of General Williams unaccompanied by any report of the operations of the First Division, for although an account of the operations of this division was given in the report of General Williams, who commanded the corps during the battle, I think the absence of Ruger's report may account for some of the errors contained in your report as to the operations of the Twelfth Corps.

I inclose a letter from General Williams, calling my attention to these errors, to which I respectfully invite your attention, and if anything can be done at this late day to correct these errors, I trust you will do it. Your report is the official history of that important battle, and to this report reference will always be made by our Government, our people, and the historian, as the most reliable and accurate account of the services performed by each corps, division, and brigade of your army. If you have inadvertently given to one division the credit of having performed some meritorious service which was in reality performed by another division, you do an injustice to brave men and defraud them of well-earned laurels. It is an injustice which even time cannot correct. That errors of this nature exist in your official report is an indisputable fact.

You give great credit to Lockwood's brigade for services on the evening of July 2, but state that this brigade was a portion of the First Corps, while it never at any time belonged to that corps, but was a portion of the Twelfth Corps, and was accompanied in its operations on the evening of July 2 by General Williams in person. A portion of this brigade (the One hundred and fiftieth New York) is still in General Williams' division.

I copy the following statement from your report:

During the heavy assault on our left, portions of the Twelfth Corps were sent as re-enforcements. During their absence, the line on the extreme right was held by a very much reduced force. This was taken advantage of by the enemy, who, during the absence of General Geary's division, of the Twelfth Corps, advanced and occupied part of the line. On the morning of the 3d, General Geary, having returned during the night, attacked at early dawn the enemy, and succeeded in driving him back and reoccupying his former position. A spirited contest was maintained all the morning along this part of the line. General Geary, re-enforced by Wheaton's brigade, of the Sixth Corps, maintained his position, and inflicted severe losses on the enemy.

From this statement it would appear that Geary's division marched to the support of your left; that Williams' division did not; that his (Williams') division, or a portion of it, was guarding the intrenchments when the enemy gained possession; that General Geary returned, and with his division drove the enemy back; that the engagement on the following morning was fought by Geary's division, assisted by Wheaton's brigade. This I know is the inference drawn from your history of those operations by every person unacquainted with the truth. Yet the facts in the case are very nearly the reverse of the above in every particular, and directly in contradiction to the facts as set forth in the report of General Geary, as well as that of General Williams. Geary's division did not march even in the direction of your left. Two of his brigades, under his immediate command, left the intrenchments under orders to move to the support of your left, but through some unfortunate mistake he took the road leading to Two Taverns. Williams' entire division did move to the support of your left, and it was one of his brigades (Lockwood's), under his immediate command, which you commend, but very singularly accredit to the First Corps.

Greene's brigade, of the Second Division, remained in the intrenchments, and the failure of the enemy to gain entire possession of our works was due entirely to the skill of General Greene and the heroic valor of his troops. His brigade suffered severely, but maintained its position, and held the enemy in check until the return of Williams' division. The “spirited contest maintained by General Geary, re-enforced by Wheaton's brigade,” was a contest for regaining the portion of our intrenchments held by the enemy, and was conducted under the immediate command of General Williams, and was participated in by the entire Twelfth Corps, re-enforced not by Wheaton's but by Shaler's brigade.

Although the command of the Twelfth Corps was given temporarily to General Williams by, your order, and although you directed him to meet at the council with other corps commanders, you fail to mention his name in your entire report, and in no place allude to his having any such command, or to the fact that more than one corps was at any time placed under my command, although at no time after you assumed command of the army until the close of this battle was I in command of less than two corps. I have now in my possession your written orders, dated July 2, directing me to assume command of the Sixth Corps, and, with that corps and the two then under my command (the Fifth and Twelfth), to move forward and at once attack the enemy.

I allude to this fact for the purpose of refreshing your memory on a subject which you had apparently entirely forgotten when you penned your report, for you have not failed to notice the fact of General Schurz and others having held, even for a few hours, commands above that previously held by them. I sincerely trust that you will endeavor to correct as far as possible the errors above mentioned, and that the correction may be recorded at the War Department.

I am, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

H. W. SLOCUM,        

Major-General of Volunteers, Commanding.

SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 27, Part 1 (Serial No. 43), p. 763-5

Diary of Corporal Lawrence Van Alstyne: Thursday, October 16, 1862

5 a. m. The cars shrink, or the men swell, for certainly everybody had less room last night than before.

Cross and crabbed, sore in every joint, and mad at everything and everybody, we crawled out of our beds (?) and shook ourselves together. In spite of strict orders to the contrary, some fresh pork and some poultry found its way past the guards during the night. The owners needn't come looking for it, they would find only bristles and feathers if they did. I suppose the partaker is as bad as the thief, but I didn't feel guilty at all for accepting a slice of pork. I soon found a canteen with no owner, melted it apart over a fire and fried my pork and divided with my chums. There was no question about its being fresh, for we had no salt to make it otherwise. About 9 o'clock we tumbled into the cars and with no more adventures reached Camp Millington late in the afternoon. Can any one imagine our surprise and our great delight at finding the 150th N. Y. in camp right across the road from our camp? In a twinkling we were together. Discipline went to the winds. The officers tried to make a show of authority, but might as well have ordered the wind not to blow. All being from the same neighborhood, we were one great happy family, reunited after a long separation. I doubt if there is a man in either regiment who has not a friend, if not a brother, in the other. They have passed through about the same experiences in the recruiting camp and passed over the same route to this place. They knew the same people we knew and could give us late information about them. My own brother, John Van Alstyne, the same John who scolded me for enlisting, who called me a "fool" and lots of other bad names, had made the same sort of a fool of himself and was here with Uncle Sam's uniform on. Dozens of others I knew almost as well, and the same was the case all through, officers and men alike. As soon as the first round of handshaking was over and our volleys of questions about home and home people were answered, we took our turn at answering as to where we had been and what we had done, and how we liked it, etc., etc. Then we couldn't help standing up a little straighter, and showing as best we could the superiority of old bronzed soldiers like us over raw recruits like them. We had just returned from a sally against the enemy. The enemy had run off and given us no chance to show what we might have done, but that was no fault of ours. But soon the pangs of hunger, which had been forgotten for the time, came back, and as soon as the 150th took in the situation, over the fences and into their deserted camp they went, and soon everything eatable that their camp contained was transferred to ours, and soon afterwards to our stomachs. And how much good it did them to see us eat! They bought out the sutler and fed us until we could eat no more. And then we smoked and talked and chatted until late into the night. Surely I have never seen so much supreme satisfaction crammed into so small a space of time. But we finally separated and have quieted down, and now that I have written up my diary I will crawl in with my snoring comrades.

SOURCE:  Lawrence Van Alstyne, Diary of an Enlisted Man, p. 52-4

Diary of Corporal Lawrence Van Alstyne: Tuesday, October 28, 1862

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

Diary of Corporal Lawrence Van Alstyne: Thursday, October 9, 1862

Bonfires in honor of the election of Mr. Chapin, for Mayor of Baltimore, was what so mystified us last night. The latest reports said there were riots in the city and it was being burned by the rioters. It was quite a relief to find out the truth, although we knew the city was there as soon as daylight appeared. The first death in our regiment occurred to-day in the hospital at Baltimore; it was that of John H. Smith, Hudson, N. Y. He was sick when we came here and was taken to the hospital at once. There are a few sick in our camp hospital, but nothing very serious as yet. At dress parade, a notice was read that we had been placed in General Emory's Brigade. I am sorry I cannot remember what other regiments make up the brigade, but I know the 150th N. Y. was not one. The Dutchess County regiment, lately organized, is the one hundred and fiftieth that New York has sent out, and we are greatly in hopes they may be with us all through the war.

SOURCE:  Lawrence Van Alstyne, Diary of an Enlisted Man, p. 46-7