The Regiment
received two months' pay to-day, and to-night are all busy as bees making up
express packages, to be sent to fathers, mothers, sisters, sweethearts and
wives. To-morrow, all who can get passes to go, will be in Washington buying
presents and sitting before a camera to "stain the glass" with
reflections from their faces, all to be sent to friends at home. As man, in the
mass, can be, in no condition, however bright, which will exempt him from
cares, fears and apprehensions, so there is none so dark as to exclude hopes
and anticipations of better things. Even here we have our joys and our
aspirations, and these are of them. We preach that man should study to be
contented. What! man in his imperfect condition, contented, that he, as an individual,
or as a part of a great whole, should remain forever, as he is! It is opposed
to all God's plans. Discontent is the only stairway to progress. Through the
discontent of Israel, Egyptian bondage was broken. The discontent of Russia
brought war, which more than compensated for its ravages and its horrors, by
the introduction of her people to a knowledge of liberal ideas. Czarism was
shaken, and already the Goddess of Liberty waves her cap over the downfall of
serfdom. The seceder's discontent in England was the Genesis of a mighty
nation. Elijah cast off the cloak, too small for his growing aspirations,
whilst his followers eagerly grasped its folds to aid their progression. The
discontent of an Almighty God substituted Noah for Adam—Christ for Diana—Eternity
for Time. And is the discontent which occasioned this great war, with all its
horrors, its butcheries, its temporary demoralization, to have no great result?
Is it a bare interlude of the parties engaged, taking advantage of the time
when "God sleepeth;" or is it a spark emitted from the great restless
spirit of Jehovah, destined to ignite into a "pillar of fire," and to
light us on in the journey of universal progress?"
"Hope springs eternal—"
I have to-day seen a
"speck of war," with another touch of Vandalism. I have, for the
first time, seen an army in drill. Fifteen to twenty
thousand men, a thousand horses, and one hundred artillery wagons, on parade.
To me, who had never seen anything of the kind, it was grand, and looked like
war. I note here an extract of a letter written to a friend to-day, attempting
a description of part of it: "It was, indeed, a magnificent sight, to see
six hundred horses harnessed to a hundred wagons, in full run, in line, like a
regiment of infantry, and at a word of command, to become so instantly and
inconcievably mixed that you would think a universal smash inevitable, appear
in another instant dashing across the vast plain without a wagon attached. Turn
your eyes to see the wrecks, and you will be surprised to see the carriages in
four straight lines, forming a hollow square, with the mouth
of every gun pointing outwardly, and a laughing expression of "Surround me
if you dare!" An other look will show you that the carriages are so close
together that the horses can not pass between them, yet the wagon poles to
which the horses had been hitched are all inside of the square.
How did the six hundred horses get out? The cannon at once
open their hundred mouths and are enveloped in smoke. The horses return,
disappear for a moment in the dense smoke, and seemingly without their stopping
long enough to be hitched to, the four lines straighten out into column, and
the cavalcade is again dashing across the plain. In less than forty rods, the
jumble is repeated, the square formed, the horses gone, and the hundred cannons
again open. When did they reload?" The vandalism: The
finest orchard I have seen in Virginia, was cut down today, and in one hour
converted into a brush-heap; and for no other purpose than to give the infantry
a chance to "show off" in an hour's parade. The fruit trees were in
the way, and were cut down! It will take forty years to replace that orchard.
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, pp. 51-3
