In the woods, near Falmouth, Va.
December 15, 1862
My Dear Mother:
Potomac Run, Va.
December 21, 1862
My Dear Father:
I leave the above heading to my letter for two reasons. In the first place to show you that I did n’t forget you while we were at the front; and in the second because this is my last sheet of paper and when this is gone I must borrow or be silent.
My last was written on Tuesday the 9th and while we were under orders for the front. The orders however did not come until Thursday and on Wednesday we had nothing to contend with but our new Colonel. He, however, was a host in himself and worried us very thoroughly. You ‘ve no idea what a nuisance such an ass as ____ is at the head of a regiment. Ignorant to the last degree of his supposed profession, his ignorance is only surpassed by his conceit and vanity and his love of display. He has two and only two of the qualities of an officer of cavalry: he is a good and daring horseman and a man of great personal courage. At the same time he is the most cruel man on horses I ever saw in my life, and his courage, combined with his plenteous lack of judgment, only endangers the lives of those under his command. He prides himself on being a disciplinarian, knowing nothing of discipline, and so wears out his officers and men by an inordinate attention to useless trifles. He considers himself a tactician and yet he could not drill a corporal’s guard without making ludicrous blunders. His mistakes on the drill ground, his theories of war and his absurdities in camp are, as John will tell you, the laughing stock of the regiment. He is universally disliked as well as ridiculed. He has already cost us the best officers in our regiment, and we all fear that he will ultimately ruin it. We of course can do nothing, but I assure you we keep up a devil of a thinking. This particular day certain horses were to be condemned and he nearly drove the commanders of companies wild. Their horses were led out and then led back again, and then led out and kept standing. Then some blanks were made out and then some more horses were ordered out, and then some were inspected and ordered to be shot or turned over to the Quarter Master, and then some messages were sent round and then we were ordered to pick out our worst horses to hand over to another regiment, and the Majors laughed and cursed, and the Captains cursed and swore, and the. men grumbled and looked sullen, and he strutted round, overwhelmed with a sense of his own importance and utterly unaware with what a hearty contempt the general camp, pioneers and all, were cursing him and laughing at him. We see how ridiculous he makes us in the army and what a tool he becomes in the hands of others; and yet, discuss it as we will among ourselves, to the world we must put our tongues between our teeth and bear it as best we may. As for me, I have no great trouble with him. I am in command of my company and go near him only when I can’t help doing so. My company is a very good one and so I’m not often drawn into scrapes….
Early Thursday morning, clear and cold, the brigade got into line and began to advance to the front. While we were at the stable call a heavy cannonade had opened towards Fredericksburg and it was clear that work was before some one. Our column was not formed until nine o’clock and then we began to move towards the front, but very slowly. It was at first very cold, and our fingers and feet felt it sharply; but as the sun rose this passed away and the weather moderated. Then the battery in front of us got stuck and delayed us an hour, during which we listened to the firing and discussed the prospects. For, instead of going out to operate on the right flank as we had expected, it was now clear that we were going straight towards Fredericksburg. Finally we passed the battery by a path through the woods, leaving it fairly mired and then pushed rapidly forward. Presently we came to a large field, about I should say a mile and a half from the point of cannonading, and there the brigade drew up, dismounted and began to wait. Around us were deserted infantry camps. On our left, on a rising ground, was an infantry line of battle, beyond and above them was a cloud of white smoke, and this was all I saw of Thursday’s fighting.
For ourselves, we waited. The warm sun had started the frost and converted our field into a fine mire, and in that we stood from eleven o’clock to sunset. As long as I could I stood by my horse and eat hard-bread and smoked. When that was played out, I found the driest place I could, spread the cape of my overcoat on the mud, laid down on it and went to sleep. So the day passed tediously and disagreeably away. Rumors of doings at the front reached us from time to time; our pontoons were knocked to pieces and the engineers killed and we were not getting ahead very fast. Finally it became clear that we were to do nothing that day, so we watered our horses and presently the column started for a camp. It was dark before we reached it, but finally we found ourselves packed away in a pine wood, full of camp fires and pine smoke. I have ceased to be a believer in any necessity for discomfort under any circumstances. On this occasion Davis and I at eight o’clock, with the horses groomed and fed, had had a very comfortable supper ourselves and then with blankets unrolled were lying before our fire and smoking the pipe of great content. The weather too had moderated and though it froze stiff during the night, in the woods we rolled ourselves in our blankets and were as comfortable as need be.
Friday the 12th, instead of moving as was expected, we lay all the morning in the camp, listening to the artillery firing which still continued, but we noticed no musketry. The day was warm and bright and we found picnicing in the woods in December not so bad. To be sure the Colonel worried the officers all he could — among other trifles in one morning threatening the Lieutenant Colonel, Major and Adjutant with arrest; but I was fortunately at the extreme further end of the camp and took good care not to lessen my distance. As it was I began to enjoy myself very much. I am growing more and more attached to out of door life, so that it is pleasant even in December. We found that our camp was most prettily situated in a little strip of pine wood surrounding a little hollow in which the 4th Pennsylvania was encamped. The weather was delightful and we had nothing to do but to while away the time watching our neighbors and listening to the cannonade. The Pennsylvanians were a source of endless delight to Davis and myself — they were so ragged, so independent, and so very peculiar. No officers troubled their repose, and stable calls worried them not. They were grave and elderly men and very, very old campaigners. They were curiously clad in defiance of all rule whether military or civil, and we pondered long as to where they could have got their clothes, until Davis happily suggested that, having all started as civilians, they had been picking up old soldier clothes ever since, until they had arrived at their present degree of uniformity. They had strange ways of leaving camp whenever they saw fit and returning ladened with well filled haversacks; whereat the faces of their comrades would light up with grim satisfaction. Water they had not now and soap they had evidently never known; but they were old soldiers, for they cooked strange messes and when boots and saddles sounded, undisturbed by the cannonade they would saddle their horses carefully, slowly and meditatively, evidently with respect for the beast if not in the fear of God. They compared so curiously with our own men so comparatively young, clean and well dressed, full of intelligence and yet subject to such rigid and never ending discipline. Then as the afternoon crept on the most beautiful lights and shadows I ever saw crept over the little hollow in which our friends were encamped, the smoke of the camp fires rising among the pines, while the sunlight played round the horses and riders among them gave effects which in pictures we should declare unnatural. At two o’clock orders came for us to saddle. We did so and got all ready to start and then, anxious and waiting for orders, we killed away the time until dusk, when again we watered and unsaddled, and again Davis and I after a comfortable supper lay before our fire enjoying the charms of tobacco and December moonlight.
Saturday the 13th, we did not change our position at all, but, as before, our horses were kept saddled the greater part of the day; but learning by experience I made myself comfortable, reading Holmes and observing the preparation of our dinner. Still, at best, this comfort was a very relative term that day, for all day long, from before day-break to long after dark, the heavy cannonade was broken only by long and terrific vollies of musketry, now before us, now on the right, now far away to the left. Evidently a terrible battle was going on, but with what result we could only guess, for we could only hear, and during all these days did not see an enemy or hear the whir-r-r of a single shot. There we lay, cold, idle and anxious, aware only of the severity of the contest, expecting soon to take part in it and knowing nothing of the result. The day passed slowly away, ending in the heaviest musketry fire by all odds that I ever heard, and again we passed a moonlight evening over our camp-fires….
An order has just come for me to go out with two days’ rations and twenty pounds of forage on some unknown job. If we meet an enemy God save us, for I understand Colonel _____ is to command.
Wednesday, 24th.
We got back from our scout yesterday at about noon, having accomplished nothing and now, as Colonel Sargent has kindly put me under arrest, I hope to be able to quietly finish my letter. Where did I leave off? I had accounted for Saturday I believe. Sunday the 14th found us still in the woods and still the weather continued clear and warm. At daybreak the usual firing began and at times there seemed to be explosions of musketry and cannon, but it was not at all the fire of yesterday. Our horses were still kept saddled and all our traps packed, but I had ceased to believe that we should move, and lay peaceably before my fire, enjoying the soft air and the strange lively scene and reading Browning’s poems.
Towards evening rumors of some great success were rife and made us all very cheerful, and we again hoped soon to be in the saddle and following the enemy briskly up on the road to Richmond. I put less faith in the rumors than most and accordingly next day my disappointment was less. For next day our hopes most suddenly collapsed. There was a desultory firing going on all day, but not amounting to a great deal as compared with what had been going on. We lay in the woods as usual and I started this letter, but was suddenly cut short by an order to shift all the picket ropes, which, while it increased my comfort, took up the rest of the day and cut off your letter.
Tuesday the 16th, they actually took us out to drill, to exercise the horses and occupy the time. We skirmished round a hilly field opposite the camp for a couple of hours, and then the Colonel blundered us into camp. It began to grow clear that we should not immediately be wanted. When I got in I was informed that I was to be officer of the day and was to go out and post some pickets to protect the rear of the camp. I should just as soon have thought of posting pickets in State Street, as we were all surrounded by the camps of our friends; but I did as I was told and posted at least half a dozen miserable men in positions in which they seemed least likely to be ridiculous and returned to camp to be worried by my Colonel. That night it rained smartly and, as usual, the drops pattering on my face reminded me that we were in bivouac. Like a knowing campaigner I called to my servant to throw my rubber poncho over me, pulled my boots under the blankets and my cape over my head and chuckled myself to sleep, as the rain came down harder and harder, to think how comfortable I was and how very much I had got ahead of the elements this time. The next morning it cleared away at about the time when decent people get up. I suppose, of course, that you bear in mind that eight o’clock P.M. is our bed time and that the regular hour of reveille is half past six — one hour before sunrise — which we vary on special occasions by having it at three o’clock and so down. I assure you I have seen all the sun-rises I ever want to see and I thoroughly believe in lying abed until the earth is dry.
Hardly was the sun out when the announcement seemed to run at once all through the camps that our whole army had recrossed, that the bridges were all up and the campaign was a terrible failure — in a word, all our cake was dough. Even Colonel Sargent concluded that his regiment would not advance for a few days and left camp. Hardly was he gone when “The General” sounded and it was announced that we were to go back whence we came. It was a muddy, sullen, discouraging march home. The sky was cloudy and threatening and the mud deep, liquid, and slippery. It was rapidly growing cold and the wind was rough and chilling. We had been to the front and had not been under fire or seen an enemy, and we were going back with a campaign ruined and winter quarters before us. For myself I did hope that now we should put through this winter campaign and not sit down under this blow. I never had any confidence in this advance, but we had tried it and now I, and I think all, felt that it would not do to give it up so, and we did earnestly hope that we might be called upon to face and be able to surmount all the exposures, dangers and obstacles of a winter campaign. At any rate we felt willing to try and I do so now, but I understand this feeling does not extend to the body of the army which crossed the Rappahannock. We got into camp by three o’clock, finding it dirty, unprepared, bleak and cold, and there finished as quietly disheartening a day as I care to pass, with a miserable and insufficient dinner and a night passed wretchedly cold in a wet overcoat and frozen blankets. I had n’t got ahead of the elements the night before as I had calculated.
A change of weather had taken place and we had got back to our tents just in time to meet it. It was cold, very cold, ice an inch and a half thick and now and then men frozen to death — only stragglers and serve them right; but then you know “a soldier’s life is always gay.” As for us, again we went shivering round camp, frozen out of our tents and miserably grouping round first one fire and then another. Our camp is the coldest, bleakest, most exposed place in the whole surrounding country, and we wanted to move into the woods; but our Colonel, fully impressed with the idea each day that tomorrow we are going to advance in triumph to Richmond, did n’t think it worth while to make us comfortable just for a day, and, as he has a large tent with a fireplace in it, he is n’t frozen out as we poor devils are. Anyhow, the next three days until Sunday passed uncomfortably enough, clear and bitter cold, the water in our blankets freezing even at noon. They drilled us Friday and Saturday, and that was a bore; but on Friday my patience gave out and I resolved to be comfortable if only for a day. So I set men to work and had a fireplace built behind my tent, of rough stone. The seam in the rear of the tent was then opened and closed around its mouth, and lo! in one corner of my tent was a mean, ugly little open fireplace. Then I had a shelf put up on one side, on which I am now writing, and a bed of fir-tree branches on the other side on which I spread my blankets. Thus I become more comfortable than I had ever been before and, though the wind sweeps and the rain drips through my tent, and Davis in abject despair calls it a “dirty kennel,” in it I can be comfortable and I can write in the coldest weather, and there I am writing now, and tomorrow in it Davis and I will have our Christmas dinner, if we can raise one, which seems doubtful; but your dinner in London and John’s in Boston will not taste better than ours, though we do eat tough beef and drink commissary whiskey out of battered and campaign worn old tin plates and cups. And even if it does, I am very sure that my health will be drunk and I shall be remembered in Newport and Boston and London and that if it lay in the power of my family, I should eat and drink of the fat of the land. However, to go back to my letter. I left off, I believe, just where I began this letter — at Sunday noon. We got our orders — 250 men from the command, with two days rations and twenty pounds of forage, and were to report in an hour. It struck hard, for though the weather had moderated it was cloudy and threatened rain and it was still rough and we were just comfortable. However, out it was and my fifty-six men were in line at the time the fifty-six horses having had two quarts of oats and no hay, thanks to the shortcomings of the brigade Quarter Master, that day. We got out and joined other details from the brigade, making 1000 cavalry all told, and somewhat after dark took up our line of march for Hartwood Church. We reached our advanced pickets at about nine o’clock and then encamped in the woods, lighting fires and feeding our horses and before eleven we were all asleep. At three o’clock Monday morning an orderly came round and woke us up, though why we did n’t exactly see, as our horses were neither fed nor cleaned, and all we had to do was to get our breakfasts. I fed my horse and got myself up a fine breakfast of four hard-breads and was ready for a start, but the start did n’t come until daybreak, and the sun rose, weak and cloudy, while we were still within our pickets, but yet on the road. Then came a long killing march, ending in nothing. We rapidly pushed directly forward, at times at a gallop, until after noon, when we pushed forward through some fields and woods as fast as our horses could go, using many up and finishing a man or two by tumbles and accidental shots. Here we drove in pickets, but I saw no signs of any force of the enemy having been in that vicinity. We then turned to the South and towards the river and ended by meeting Sigel’s corps and marching home to our camp of the night before, having made a dashing reconnaissance with no results…. We got into camp about five o’clock having covered I should say not less than thirty-five miles. We cleaned and fed the horses, cooked some supper and then went to sleep. Yesterday (Tuesday, 23d) at daybreak we were roused and got ready to come home. To show you how government kills horses, I will say that my fifty-six from twelve o’clock Saturday night to twelve o’clock Tuesday noon — sixty hours — travelled nearly sixty miles and had no hay and just thirteen quarts of oats apiece. I am glad to say only one gave out, and that one has since been brought in. We came leisurely in on a pleasant, warm, winter morning, and here befel my most lamentable arrest by my Colonel. He thinks himself a disciplinarian and is great on “marching orders,” and leading the column on a march. Now we were within sight of our camp and the brigade had stopped to water at a stream, and watering a thousand horses is a matter of time. As we were waiting I happened to hear that Colonel Buchanan was quartered just a hundred yards or so on our right in plain sight. I wanted to see him and said so to Major Higginson, with whom I was riding. He replied: “Why don’t you go now? I would.” I said I would come over again, there was n’t time, etc.; but he still advised me to go until at last I said I thought I would and cantered over there. I found the Colonel in front of his tent and had a pleasant talk of about ten minutes with him. I then started to rejoin my column and found it had gone forward. I followed and came up just after my company had watered and found Colonel Sargent just finishing some unknown manœuvre through which he discovered my absence. As I calmly took my place, he summoned me before him and inquired where I had been. I pleasantly informed him, in that airy manner which makes me a universal favorite, and he immediately put me under arrest. Upon which, winking pleasantly at his orderlies, I retired to the rear of my company. I believe now he is debating in his own mind as to whether he will have me dismissed the service without a hearing or court martialed and cashiered. He is too ignorant to know that my having had the consent of my immediate superior to what I did covers me completely. So now I look upon this as a little vacation and to my release from the weary monotony of company duties you owe this letter….
