Camp Near Strasboro, Virginia, March 31, 1862.
I was glad to hear,
from your letter of the 23d, that you have been doing something, and leading
others to do, for the wounded and suffering from Pea Ridge. You will never
appreciate, except feebly and by conjecture, the relief and soothing of which
you may be the happy cause. If, on Monday evening last, you had gone with me
into the courthouse at Winchester, and seen the wounded and dying lying upon
the bare floor, “heads and points,” as the surgeon expressed it, the victims at
once of hunger and cold and wounds, you would know what could be done with the
heart to do and the things to do with.
Of those people who
make a luxury of good works, and are, so to speak, epicures in benevolence, I
know not how they could get so much for their money as by coming upon one of
these recent battle-fields.
I rejoice in
Howard's safety more than I can bring myself to do in my own. While you are
thinking of the bodily security of your sons, there is one of them who is jaded
and depressed by the inglorious military drudgery to which “the best regiment
in the service” is hopelessly condemned.
I have just returned
from twenty-four hours’ picket duty in a cold rain-storm. The enemy's line of
pickets is about a mile from our own. Ashby brought up his cannon, and threw a
few shells at our outposts. They whistled through the air and fell near us, but
were only bravado and insolence. When we go on he will run faster than we can
follow. Meantime, the large movements and the decisive actions of the Potomac
campaign are probably taking place, and we are stupidly trailing after an
evanescent and puny, but resolute, foe. Bah! One of our companies is in
Centreville, I suppose; one at Snicker's Ferry; the rest here, drying
themselves in the sun after twenty-four hours' hard, wet, useless work,
unrecognized and unknown. Whenever the division wants a commissary, or an
acting assistant-adjutant, or what not, he is detailed from us. We have not a
single full brigadier in the whole corps d’armée. Five brigades all commanded by colonels, —
unorganized and undisciplined, except a few regiments.
Do you wonder that
I get down in the mouth? It will soon be a year that we have been in service,
with nothing to show for it but the effects of the hardest possible work.
You see I am in no
mood for letter-writing. I write because there is a mail going. I shall not
write again till I feel better. You need not feel concerned at not hearing from
me. I almost feel as if I would not take up a pen again till I could speak of
something else than the inglorious details of our present life. Love to all at
home.
SOURCE: Elizabeth Amelia Dwight, Editor, Life and
Letters of Wilder Dwight: Lieut.-Col. Second Mass. Inf. Vols., p. 223-4
