Our first morning in camp. We were rudely awakened and dragged
from our bunks at six o’clock, very few being used to such early hours, except
perhaps on 4th of July, and were expected to be on the parade ground before our
eyes were fairly open.
My advice is if you ever enlist again, start with buckle or
congress boots, or none at all, don’t wear laced ones. Why Thereby hangs a
tale. One man who wore laced boots was late, consequently had to fall in at the
foot of the column. In a minute or two, around came the adjutant and some other
officer, who wanted a man for guard. The man who was late at roll-call, was
detailed of course. He went without a word was posted on the edge of a pond his
orders being “Keep this water from being defiled, allow no privates to bathe
here, let only the officers bathe and the
cooks draw water to cook with.” The orders were fulfilled, but the poor
guard was forgotten, and paced up and mostly
down (as it was a pleasant grassy sward,) till eleven o clock. That was his
first experience of guard duty, and he always owed a grudge to the sergeant of
that guard and his laced boots.
Meanwhile, the company, left standing in the street, with
their towels, combs, &c., proceeded to the water, where the pride of many a
family got down on his knees, and went through the farce of a toilet, and then
back to breakfast.
To-day we have been busy cleaning up and getting ready for
our friends from home. It has been as novel a day as last night was new, it is
a great change, but we will conquer this, and probably worse.
Our friends began to arrive about three o clock, and by
supper-time the barracks were well filled, many remaining to supper so shawls
and blankets were spread upon the ground, and we gave them a sample of our
food. The coffee was good but so hot, and having no saucer with which to cool
the beverage, we had to leave it till the last course. Our plates were plated
with tin, but very shallow, and as bean soup was our principal course we had
some little trouble in engineering it from the cook s quarters to our tables.
We must not forget the bread, it was made by the State, and by the looks, had
been owned by the State since the Mexican war. We had never seen the like, and
begged to be excused from enduring much of it at a time. (We afterwards found
no occasion to grumble at our food, for as you may remember, we were looked
after well during our whole service. We had as good rations as any one could
wish, but here, within ten miles of home, we felt that this was rough on the
boys.)
For a week, little was done but feed and drill us, to
toughen us for the dim future, and the furloughs were granted very freely. We
were soon astonished to find that we had for a surgeon, a man who meant
business. Among other things, he thought government clothes were all that we
needed, so spring and fall overcoats and fancy dry goods had to be bundled up
and sent home. All our good things were cleaned out, everything was contraband
excepting what the government
allowed. We had always thought it a free country, but this
broke in on our individual ideas of personal freedom, and we began to think we
were fast losing all trace of civil rights, and becoming soldiers pure and
simple. Nothing could be brought into camp by our friends unless we could eat
it before the next morning but goodies would come, and as we had to eat them,
of course we were sick.
SOURCE: John Jasper Wyeth, Leaves from a Diary Written While Serving in Co. E, 44 Mass. Dep’t of
North Carolina from September 1862 to June 1863, p. 6-7
