pleasant Hill, Camp Near Darnestown,
Saturday, September 7,
1861.
Dear Mother, —
Twice within three days we have been abruptly summoned to get into marching
array. Twice has the order been countermanded. This morning at three o'clock I
was waked to open my eyes upon the misty starlight by an orderly from
head-quarters.
He brought the order: “The enemy have broken up their camp
at Manassas, and are moving. Get everything in readiness to start. If a
signal-light is exhibited at headquarters, let the long roll be beaten and the
regiment get under arms at once.” Colonel Gordon is in Washington. Colonel Andrews
gave quietly the necessary orders, and then both he and I composed ourselves to
sleep. We have learnt that excitement is useless and unprofitable. Besides,
composure is so graceful, and withal comfortable, at that hour. But, seriously,
these successive alarms have become the habit of our lives. One of these days
perchance the wolf will come. But this morning there are no new orders, and no
immediate prospect of a start. Movement must come, however, shortly, and I
confess I am impatient for its coming. Just now, perhaps, I can be content to
wait. My horse did me the ill turn to fall with me the other day. I was urging
him hastily down hill, and he stumbled and went down. He chafed my leg a
little, and so I am lying still to-day to get well. To-morrow both he and I
will be firmly on our legs again, and it may well happen that we shall both
need them. I was sorry to hear of your cold. It is such a bad companion for
August. You should come and live in a tent, and then you would cease to have
any of the ills that follow close rooms, warm beds, coal fires, and the other accidents
of civilized life in times of peace. . . . . It is a sultry morning, and the
air moves listlessly through my tent. I am reclining orientally, and the Doctor
has just been making an application to my bruise. He has also been chatting
pleasantly for half an hour, and so has broken what little thread belonged to
my story. It is well that it is so, for the life of the past few days does not
need a chronicler. We all expect something coming, but do not know what or
when. I confess I enjoy a few days for the study of tactics and attention to
military matters. The theory slips out of sight in the tread-mill of daily
duty.
I glanced at an article in the Atlantic Monthly this morning
on “The Advantages of Defeat.” I cannot agree to its positions. American
soldiers, — let the fact be plainly stated,— American soldiers will only become
efficient in proportion as they abandon their national theories and give
themselves up obediently to the military laws which have always governed
the successful prosecution of war. “The incurable habit of insubordination of
the citizen,” as the Saturday Review has it, in a capital article, “cannot be transferred
to the soldier.” To-day our army is crippled by the ideas of equality and
independence which have colored the whole life of our people. Men elect their
officers, and then expect them to behave themselves! Obedience is
permissive, not compelled, and the radical basis is wrong. We have to struggle
against the evil tendencies of this contagion. When this defect is cured, and
men recognize authority and obey without knowing why, — obey from habit and
instinct, not from any process of reasoning or presumed consent, — we shall
begin to get an army. It is only necessary to appreciate the fact that, in war,
one will must act through all the others, to see that American soldiers,
with all their presumed intelligence and skill, have the one lesson yet
to learn. So for my preachment. Here appears Colonel Gordon, returned suddenly
from Washington. The enemy are moving somewhither, and of course he
rejoins his regiment The obvious weaknesses of delay may drive the Rebels to
offensive action. If so, Heaven send them across the river between us and
Washington, so that we may have a part in the great battle that crushes them.
And yet I cannot believe that any such chance will come to us. Speculation,
however, is worthless, on a matter which will have decided itself long before
the speculation can reach you.
SOURCE: Elizabeth Amelia Dwight, Editor, Life and
Letters of Wilder Dwight: Lieut.-Col. Second Mass. Inf. Vols., p. 96-8
