Cooks were discharged this morning their time having expired The reported capture of Capt. Ritters comp proves to be false comp Drills in the forenoon to day And Battalion Drill as usual. Another report is comon this evening that our troops have been driven from Norfolk and falling back on Birds Point the Enemy advancing Fifteen Thousand strong.
SOURCE: Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society for the Year 1909, p. 227
Two letters to-day,
and two papers, all from home. Seems as if I had been there for a visit. I
wonder if my letters give them as much pleasure? I expect they do. It is
natural they should. I know pretty nearly what they are about, but of me, they
only know what I write in my letters, and in this, my everlasting letter, as I
have come to call my diary. It is getting to be real company for me. It is my
one real confident. I sometimes think it is a waste of time and paper, and then
I think how glad I would be to get just such nonsense from my friends, if our
places were changed. I suppose they study out these crow's tracks with more
real interest than they would a message from President Lincoln. We are looking
for a wet bed again to-night. It does not rain, but a thick fog covers
everything and the wind blows it in one side of our tents and out the other.
Maybe I have
described our life here before, but as no one description can do it justice I
am going to try again. We are in a field of 100 acres, as near as I can judge,
on the side of a hill, near the top. The ground is newly seeded and wets up
quickly, as such ground usually does. We sleep in pairs, and a blanket spread
on the ground is our bed while another spread over us is our covering. A narrow
strip of muslin, drawn over a pole about three feet from the ground, open at
both ends, the wind and rain, if it does rain, beating in upon us, and water
running under and about us; this, with all manner of bugs and creeping things
crawling over us, and all the while great hungry mosquitoes biting every
uncovered inch of us, is not an overdrawn picture of that part of a soldier's
life, set apart for the rest and repose necessary to enable him to endure
several hours of right down hard work at drill, in a hot sun with heavy woollen
clothes on, every button of which must be tight-buttoned, and by the time the
officers are tired watching us, we come back to camp wet through with
perspiration and too tired to make another move. Before morning our wet clothes
chill us to the marrow of our bones, and why we live, and apparently thrive
under it, is something I cannot understand. But we do, and the next day are
ready for more of it. Very few even take cold. It is a part of the contract,
and while we grumble and growl among ourselves we don't really mean it, for we
are learning what we will be glad to know at some future time.
Now I am about it,
and nothing better to do, I will say something about our kitchen, dining room
and cooking arrangements. Some get mad and cuss the cooks, and the whole war
department, but that is usually when our stomachs are full. When we are hungry
we swallow anything that comes and are thankful for it. The cook house is
simply a portion of the field we are in. A couple of crotches hold up a pole on
which the camp kettles are hung, and under which a fire is built. Each company
has one, and as far as I know they are all alike. The camp kettles are large
sheet-iron pails, one larger than the other so one can be put inside the other
when moving. If we have meat and potatoes, meat is put in one, and potatoes in
the other. The one that gets cooked first is emptied into mess pans, which are
large sheet-iron pans with flaring sides, so one can be packed in another. Then
the coffee is put in the empty kettle and boiled. The bread is cut into thick
slices, and the breakfast call sounds. We grab our plates and cups, and wait
for no second invitation. We each get a piece of meat and a potato, a chunk of
bread and a cup of coffee with a spoonful of brown sugar in it. Milk and butter
we buy, or go without. We settle down, generally in groups, and the meal is
soon over. Then we wash our dishes, and put them back in our haversacks. We
make quick work of washing dishes. We save a piece of bread for the last, with
which we wipe up everything, and then eat the dish rag. Dinner and breakfast
are alike, only sometimes the meat and potatoes are cut up and cooked together,
which makes a really delicious stew. Supper is the same, minus the meat and
potatoes. The cooks are men detailed from the ranks for that purpose. Every one
smokes or chews tobacco here, so we find no fault because the cooks do both.
Boxes or barrels are used as kitchen tables, and are used for seats between
meals. The meat and bread are cut on them, and if a scrap is left on the table
the flies go right at it and we have so many the less to crawl over us. They
are never washed, but are sometimes scraped off and made to look real clean. I
never yet saw the cooks wash their hands, but presume they do when they go to
the brook for water.
SOURCE:
Lawrence Van Alstyne, Diary of an Enlisted Man, p. 28-31
CAMP MILLINGTON,
BALTIMORE. On account of the heat we were not taken out for drill to-day. We
have cleaned up our quarters, for since getting our new and comfortable tents
we are quite particular about appearances. There is a friendly rivalry as to
which of the ten companies shall have the neatest quarters. All being exactly
alike to start with, it depends upon us to keep them neat and shipshape. The
cooks have tents as well as we, and altogether we are quite another sort from
what we were a week ago. It has been a regular clean up day with us. The brook
below us has carried off dirt enough from our clothing and bodies to make a
garden. While we were there close beside the railroad, a train loaded with
soldiers halted, and while we were joking with the men, someone fired a pistol
from another passing train, and a sergeant on the standing train was killed—whether
it was by accident or purposely done, no one knows; or whether the guilty one
will be found out and punished, no one of us can tell. But I wonder so few
accidents do happen. There are hundreds of revolvers in camp and many of them
in the hands of those who know no better how to use them than a child.
SOURCE:
Lawrence Van Alstyne, Diary of an Enlisted Man, p. 40-1
Colonel ——— to-day
complains that I have too much force employed in the hospital, and says that he
will cut it down. The regulations allow ten nurses and two cooks to the
regiment, besides Surgeons, and Hospital Steward. All I have, are three nurses
and two cooks. Will he dare to cut that down? Should he do so I will "try
conclusions" as to his authority to do it. Three nurses, for one hundred
sick, and that must be cut down! Nor is this all. The Quartermaster, taking his
cue from the Colonel, refuses to acknowledge our right to a hospital fund, and
I therefore get but few comforts for the sick, except through charity or a
fight for it. It is to be hoped that these officers will, by a little more
experience, become better posted in their duties, and that the sick will not
then be considered interlopers, or intruders on the comforts of the regiment. I
forgot to say, in the proper place, that we are brigaded, forming a part of
Gen. Rufus King's brigade, composed of four regiments.
I have not yet
donned the full uniform of my rank, and there is scarcely a day passes that I
do not get a reproving hint on the subject from our Colonel. A few days ago,
whilst in Baltimore, he came to me almost railing at certain army officers for
appearing in citizens' dress. "There," said he, "is Major B.,
Major K., Gen. D., Doct. N. P., all of the regular army, and not one of whom
can be distinguished from a private citizen." "Colonel," I
replied, "they probably fear being mistaken for volunteer officers. He did
not feel flattered, but dropped the subject. Since I came here, I think I can
tell a man's calibre by his shoulder-straps. The amount of brain is generally
in inverse proportion to the size of his straps.
SOURCE: Alfred L.
Castleman, The Army of the Potomac. Behind the Scenes. A Diary of
Unwritten History; From the Organization of the Army, by General George B.
McClellan, to the close of the Campaign in Virginia about the First Day
January, 1863, p. 18
Those of us who are on guard to-day are having a “soft time.” We have our orders to start at three to-morrow morning. The boys are busy packing, receiving cartridges, &c.; the cooks are hard at work in their department, and the surgeon is hunting for men to guard camp. We were afraid the guard were to be left, but the captain says he won't forget us. The knapsacks are to be stored in the officers' tents, and we are ordered to get all the sleep we can from now till four to-morrow, perhaps the last nap under cover for weeks.
SOURCE: John Jasper Wyeth, Leaves from a Diary Written While Serving in Co. E, 44 Mass. Dep’t of North Carolina from September 1862 to June 1863, p. 16
