camp Near Seneca, November 16, 1861.
The difference between our actions in this war seems to be,
that we don't half do our Ball's Bluffs, and we do half do our
Port Royals. Fruit ripe in South Carolina, and no one to pick it. That's the
way I read the news from the scene of our late success. Where are the next
twenty thousand troops? They should be within an hour's sail of Port Royal. Is
it a sagacious military conjecture, that a victory at that point would strike
terror and panic to the neighboring cities? If so, should not that conjecture
have anticipated the result of which we are just beginning to hear? Should it
not have provided a force to enjoy and intensify that panic? I know of a whole
division, which, instead of shivering in the mud of Maryland, would gladly be
pursuing a panic-stricken multitude with fire and sword. Why not? Of course, we
are much in the dark, but my guess is, that twenty thousand good soldiers could
to-day enter either Charleston or Savannah. If they could not occupy and hold,
they could burn and destroy. “Rebels and Traitors,” I would head my
proclamation. Not “Carolinians and Fellow-citizens.” Not peace, but the sword.
There is cotton to tempt avarice, negroes to tempt philanthropy, Rebels to
tempt patriotism, — everything to warrant a great risk. As I read the Southern
accounts, they seem to me to indicate the presence of panic. From that, I infer
a weak and exposed condition. We shall leave them time to recover their
courage, and strengthen their defences. I do not know what is possible to our “Great
Country,” but, possible or impossible, I would pour an avalanche on that shore
forthwith.
You see that reflection and conjecture are the only
amusements of our rainy days. So I must fill my letters with guesses and hopes.
I advise you to read McClellan's Reviewof the War in the Crimea. One could wish
that his pen were free to criticise his own campaign. Could he not expose, here
and there, a blunder? Perhaps the answer is, It is not his campaign.
My new man arrived last night, very unexpectedly to himself,
apparently; for he seemed to find obscurity enveloping his path, and to
think his advance to this point a great success.
He brought letters which delighted me. It was mail night,
and I had no mail till John came with his budget. Father seems to speak
stoically of “a long war.” What it may be mismanaged into I cannot say, but,
decently managed, it cannot be a long war. The disasters and embarrassments
which will follow in its train will be long enough; the war itself short and
desperate, I hope.
There is something ludicrous in writing so quietly on calm,
white paper, without expressing at all the roaring, whistling, wintry surroundings
of my present scene. Our yesterday's rain has cleared off cold. Real winter
this morning. Ice in the wash-basin, numbness in the fingers, frost from the
breath. I rejoice in the invigorating turn that the weather has taken. I feel
myself much better for it, and I know it must improve the health and vigor of
the camp. But the howling blast is a stern medicine, and even now it shakes my
tent so that my pen trembles. I should like you to have seen the picture our
camp presented at reveillé
this morning. I purposely went out without my overcoat, and walked leisurely
down the line, as if I were fanned by the zephyrs of June. I wished to have the
men observe that I recognized nothing unusual in our first taste of winter.
Still, in point of fact, it was cold. Now drill is going on without overcoats.
I told them they must double-quick if they were cold. The only way is, to hold
things up to the sharp line under all circumstances. It will be a little hard
to keep up the illusion all winter, I fear, however. Still, everything requires
bracing up constantly. The virtue of this military life is the importunate
recurrence of daily duty. Rain or shine, health or sickness, joy or grief,
reveillé knocks “ӕquo pede” with impartial cadence at every tent. Its
lively and awakening beat thrills a new life through the camp, as the rising
sun whitens the glowing east. And then when tattoo at evening awakes the
men to sleep (for it is not a soothing strain), “duty performed” has made them
happy, or should have done so, on the authority of the great expounder of the
Constitution himself. Such are the consolations of camp life in November. But
then, as Dr. Hedge happily observes in a discourse on “National Weakness,” “the
Rebel power is still unsubdued; the harvest is passed, the summer is ended, and
we are not saved.” True, but we are not lost. We propose in the
Massachusetts Second to keep Thanksgiving day thankfully, if not for what has
happened, at least for what has not happened. I have just sent out an
order for the provision of Thanksgiving dinners for the men. And I quite expect
that turkey and plum-pudding will smoke on our mess-pans and exhale from our
ovens on Thursday next. I could be content to be at home on that day, but,
failing that, I shall enjoy an attempt to extemporize and emulate a New England
Thanksgiving in a Maryland camp on the wrong bank of the Potomac. We shall read
the Thanksgiving Proclamation, and be as happy as we may. I suppose you will
have your usual celebration. I expect to enjoy the unusual honor to come in
among the absent friends. . . . .
The pleasure of reading your last letter was somewhat
alloyed, I confess, by the pervading strain of eulogy of my own letters. It is
all nonsense. The story is a very good one, perhaps; the telling it is nothing;
and as for “historical value,” you just wait. Our little events will not be a
paragraph in the record which ought to be and must be written.
Father closes his last letter with the very kind wish that
he knew what to send me. I happen to be able to tell him, — viz. a little nice
English breakfast tea. A good honest cup of black tea would delight me.
If you should find that Colonel Gordon has not gone back before this reaches
you, pray make him the bearer of a small package of tea.
I see by to-night's Clipper (it is Saturday evening while I
write), that a delegation from Baltimore goes to ask the President for
government patronage for the repentant city. This fulfils a prediction I had
the honor to make. I see, also, that the landing of our force at Beaufort was a
scene of disorder and confusion. That comes of sending the rawest troops to the
hardest duty. I am puzzled to know why this is done to such an alarming extent.
But tattoo is just beating. It is a raw and gusty night. The air bites
shrewdly. I think I will leave that puzzle unsolved, and get within the warm
folds of my constant buffalo-robe. Good night. Grandmother will be pleased to
hear, before I go to bed, that with one of her blankets I have just made
Captain Mudge warm and comfortable in a little attack of illness which has just
overtaken him. The soft blanket will be as good as the Doctor's medicine, —
better, perhaps. . . . .
I have just room to bid you good morning, this Sunday
morning. I am just ready for inspection, and have no doubt the day will work
itself off quietly and pleasantly.
SOURCE: Elizabeth Amelia Dwight, Editor, Life and
Letters of Wilder Dwight: Lieut.-Col. Second Mass. Inf. Vols., p. 144-7
