Diary of Corporal Lawrence Van Alstyne: Tuesday, November 25, 1862

If I have kept track right, this is Thanksgiving day up north. My mouth waters as I think of the good things they will eat to-day. I suppose we should feel thankful for the fare we have, but it is hard to do it, and is harder yet to eat it. Still I know how impossible it is to do much better by us than they do. The family is so big, the individual member of it must not expect pie and cake with every meal. Some drilling in the manual of arms is done on the quarter deck. It makes something to do, and anything is better than nothing. A gun feels pretty heavy to me these days. It is curious to see how we divide up into families. Men who were friends and neighbors at home are even more than that here. Our duties may separate us, but when they are over we hunt each other up again. We know and talk with others, but confidences are all saved for the few. Our beds are next to each other, but with the fellows next to us on the other side we have little to do.

The waves run high to-day, higher than any I ever saw, and yet the sailors say this is almost a dead calm. Still the vessel pitches and dives, so we run against some one or something every move we make.

SOURCE:  Lawrence Van Alstyne, Diary of an Enlisted Man, p. 65

Diary of 2nd Lieutenant Benjamin F. Pearson, October 28, 1862

Forenoon we drilled in the manuel of arms evening I took Miss Richey of Ill to the sociable at the M E Church Chatam Square we had a pleasant time

SOURCE: Edgar R. Harlan, Currator, Annals of Iowa, 3rd Series, Vol. 15, No. 2, October 1925, p. 93

Diary of 2nd Lieutenant Benjamin F. Pearson, October 29, 1862

We drilled forenoon in manual of arms & afternoon in battallion drill & dress perade Our Reg took a march through the citty & drilled some on main Street evening I wrote our Capt a letter visited the hospitals & with our 1st & 2nd Seargent took a dish of Oisters two of the men of our Reg in Capt Vermilions Co. ware sent home to be buried

SOURCE: Edgar R. Harlan, Currator, Annals of Iowa, 3rd Series, Vol. 15, No. 2, October 1925, p. 93-4

Diary of 2nd Lieutenant Benjamin F. Pearson, October 30, 1862

Forenoon I drilled the Co in the manual of arms afternoon we ware on battallion drill & dress perade & ware down on main street & had our arms inspected I visited our boys in the hospital morning & night some of them are verry sick one of Co [F] Capt Vermilion died he is a brother to one that was sent up yesterday

SOURCE: Edgar R. Harlan, Currator, Annals of Iowa, 3rd Series, Vol. 15, No. 2, October 1925, p. 94

Diary of Corporal Lawrence Van Alstyne, Sunday Night, September 28, 1862

Meeting to-day. Chaplain Parker preached. He asked those who would stop swearing to hold up their hands, and so far as I could see every hand went up. After inspection in the morning we had nothing to do except to go to meeting and dress parade, which I believe we are to have regularly. We march to the parade ground, which is just back of our camp quarters, and form in line. The colonel, with the major and adjutant on his right and left, station [themselves] in front, the colonel opposite the colors, which are in the center, between Companies C and H. The fifer and drummer pass along in front and back again when the colonel puts us through the manual of arms. A great many civilians come out and it must be a pretty sight, provided the orders are well executed. If we do well, nothing is said, but if not, we are cautioned to do better next time.

How I wish I could peep in on the old folks at home to-night! I imagine just how they are sitting around, talking, perhaps of me, or better yet, writing me a letter.

There is no use denying that I am homesick. I have been such a home-body, and my home life has been so pleasant.

The comforts of my home, though humble, have been many, and I have never missed them as I do to-night. I have only been away a short time, but it seems longer to me than all my life before. It has been crowded so full of strange and stirring events that it seems as if I would go crazy unless I can see and talk with our folks about it. Mr. Parker says confession is good for the soul, and I believe it, for after confessing to my diary as I have I feel better already. I will crawl in now and perhaps dream of home, which I often do, and which while it lasts, is just as good as being there.

SOURCE:  Lawrence Van Alstyne, Diary of an Enlisted Man, p. 40

Diary of Private Adam S. Johnston, September 17, 1861

Left Pittsburgh and got to Lancaster on the night of the 18th, about 4 o'clock in the morning; slept in the Rankin House till morning, took breakfast and then were marched up near the Pennsylvania rail road and quartered in a hook and ladder house for sixteen days, and drilled and put through the manual of arms about four hours per day during those sixteen days, being our first alphabetical lessons of military tactics. Making a march of 339 miles.

SOURCE: Adam S. Johnston, The Soldier Boy's Diary Book, p. 8

Diary of 1st Lieutenant Lemuel A. Abbott: Friday, December 30, 1864

Worked all day on muster and pay rolls; mild south wind; storm brewing. Captain G. E. Davis drilled the battalion this afternoon in the manual of arms; muddy brigade dress parade this evening; hardly a gun to be heard on picket to-night; no letters or news; retired at 11 o'clock p. m. tired.

SOURCE: Lemuel Abijah Abbott, Personal Recollections and Civil War Diary, 1864, p. 246

Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes: Monday, July 7, 1862

Camp Jones, Flat Top. — The warmest day of the season. The men are building great bowers over their company streets, giving them roomy and airy shelters. At evening they dance under them, and in the daytime they drill in the bayonet exercise and manual of arms. All wish to remain in this camp until some movement is begun which will show us the enemy, or the way out of this country. We shall try to get water by digging wells.

The news of today looks favorable. McClellan seems to have suffered no defeat. He has changed front; been forced (perhaps) to the rear, sustained heavy losses; but his army is in good condition, and has probably inflicted as much injury on the enemy as it has suffered. This is so much better than I anticipated that I feel relieved and satisfied. The taking of Richmond is postponed, but I think it will happen in time to forestall foreign intervention.

There is little or no large game here. We see a great many striped squirrels (chipmunks), doves, quails, a few pigeons and pheasants, and a great many rattlesnakes. I sent Birch the rattles of a seventeen-year-old yesterday. They count three years for the button and a year for each rattle.

There is a pretentious headboard in the graveyard between here and headquarters with the inscription “Anna Eliza Brammer, borned ——“

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 298-9