Capt. Bostwick came
from Albany last night. He has his commission, and is to be captain of Company
B, his being the second company filled. I can now style myself of Co. B, 128th
N. Y. State Volunteers. He got us together and gave us quite a speech. Told us
what he would do, and what he expected us to do. I imgaine none of us know very
well yet what we will do. He said if he had not got his commission he would
have gone in the ranks with us. We gulped this down, but I doubt if many
believed it. But at all events we are one family now, and Ed. Bostwick is the
head of it. We have known him so long as just Ed. Bostwick, that it will take
some time to get used to addressing him as Capt. Bostwick. One of our company,
Jim Wasburn, who hails from Sharon, was put in the guard-house three times
yesterday for fighting. He ought to make a good soldier, for he had rather
fight than eat. He is a "mean dog," always picking at some one
smaller than himself. To-day he pushed Eph. Hammond over, as he was getting
some water from a pail. Eph. is one of our smallest men, but he gave the bully
a crack on the jaw that sent him sprawling, and took the fight all out of him.
One of the Poughkeepsie boys has gone on the war path too. He began Sunday
night by running past the guard, and then waiting until arrested. Just as he
got inside he gave his captor the slip and hid in the barracks until the search
was given up. Then he came out and dodged past another guard and gave his
pursuers a lively chase over the fields before they caught him. He might be
going yet if he had not stopped and let them take him. He was brought in, put
in the guard-house, and before ten o'clock was out and down town, where he got
into some mischief and was locked up by the police. Yesterday he was brought
back under guard and again put in the guard-house, which by the way is only a
tent, with a soldier stationed by it. Last night, as I was coming from the city
I met him going down, and probably by this time he is in jail again.
6 p. m. Have just
drawn our coats, drawers, stockings and shoes. Ben Rogers is here. He belongs
to a Kinderhook company. Jim Rowe and John Pitcher have just come. Twenty-five
of the company are old acquaintances, all from the same neighborhood. Besides,
I have made lots of new acquaintances here. Men are coming every day and almost
by every train, and the prospect of our regiment being soon filled seems good.
The President's call for 300,000 volunteers is being nobly responded to here,
and probably it is the same all over the North.
SOURCE:
Lawrence Van Alstyne, Diary of an Enlisted Man, p. 7-8
