camp Hicks, Near Frederick, December 15, 1861.
Another bright, sunny Sunday; the regiment growing in grace,
favor, and winter quarters. The band has got its new instruments, and has been
piping melodiously in the moonlight this evening. The instruments are very fine
indeed. . . . .
To-morrow morning our brigade is to be reviewed by General
–––. Napoleon, as the newspapers are fond of saying, used to precede his great
battles and important movements by grand reviews. General ––– is not Napoleon. Voilà tout.
The Colonel, since we got into this new camp, has been doing
a good deal of “rampaging,” and with excellent effect. I think I never saw the
regiment in better condition. The relaxed discipline consequent on sickness and
the march has recovered its tone completely. We have had a court-martial
sitting for several days, and the men have been very generally and impartially
punished in their pay. This is good economy for the government, and a sharp
lesson for the men. Each of the divisional departments — the commissary, the
quartermaster, the medical — are lame and impotent.
What do you say to the fact that, but for the activity and outside
zeal of our quartermaster, we should be in rags?
The division takes no care of us; we go to head-quarters at
Washington, and take care of ourselves. We go to Washington; but the theory and
duty is, that everything comes to us through the division department
here.
This has never been true, and, as I said, but for our
irregular and enterprising expeditions to Washington, there is little we could
get for ourselves. Again, what do you say to the fact that to-day, but for the
activity of officers outside of the medical department, and but for their
spending money saved from other sources, our hospital tent would be floorless,
storeless, and flung to the breeze? Now, however, it has a nice floor, good
bunks, and a warm, cheerful stove; and, yesterday morning, at inspection,
looked as neat and comfortable as your parlor. No thanks, however, to the
medical men. The division medical director don't know to-day that our
typhoid-fever patients are not basking in precarious sunshine on the bosom — the
cold, chaste bosom — of unnatural Mother Earth, after a sleepless night in the
pale shadows of the moon!! To be sure, he guesses that the Second Massachusetts
Regiment will take care of itself; but while they are issuing stoves, &c.,
at Washington, we are buying them for ourselves here.
Again, a brisk little stove is humming in almost every tent
of the companies; many of the tents are floored: all this, however, with our
own money, — individual, regimental enterprise, not divisional or departmental
care. Such is the picture we present. Add to this that all this outlay and
endeavor is adventured by us in the face of a blank uncertainty of the future,
an utter darkness, an outer darkness, as to whether we are here for a
day or for all time, and you have a position that would arouse complaint, if we
allowed ourselves to grumble. We have no hint from head-quarters to guide us.
We have been here nearly two weeks: perhaps we shall get advice when we have
finished our action. Advice to act on is what we want. Head, control,
direction, will, organization, is what we miss. I speak only of the sphere in
which we move, of this department. It is a part of McClellan's army, however,
and, as such, is entitled to better guidance. I do not put the fault on General
Banks, but on the crippled condition in which his staff and departments are
kept. Of this, however, I am not in a position to be an observer or a judge. I
can speak only of the results which I see. There is no reason why I should harp
on this theme, however. We get on finely, only I like to make it understood
that we do so over obstacles. This is natural, I suppose.
When I hear, too, all this talk about a “grand army,” “the
splendid spectacle our country presents,” &c., &c. “what a terror we
should be to England,” “how ready we are for war,” I know that it is the
nonsense of ignorance that men are talking. “Clear your mind of cant,” says Dr.
Johnson.
SOURCE: Elizabeth Amelia Dwight, Editor, Life and
Letters of Wilder Dwight: Lieut.-Col. Second Mass. Inf. Vols., p. 172-4
