Cleaning house day
in the hospital. I have been helping so one of the nurses can get off for a
walk outside. We found a burying ground where I counted fifty from the 12th
Connecticut Volunteers. Nearly all died in August and September last. So we
have not had all the sickness and death. I will try and not complain as much as
I have. There were only eight from our regiment besides two we have sent home.
From there we followed the parapet to the Jackson & Mississippi R. R.,
which runs not far back from camp. Saw a regiment of negro soldiers, who seemed
to feel fine, were having all sorts of games and were in first-rate spirits.
Their camp was clean and at the head of each company street were flower beds.
Just outside they had planted a garden and onions and other things were
growing. The commissioned officers were white. Everything else was black.
But for get-up and style they beat any white regiment I have yet seen. It made
me ashamed to go home. When I get out of the hospital I mean to try and get the
boys to be more like them.
SOURCE:
Lawrence Van Alstyne, Diary of an Enlisted Man, pp. 95-6
