Wednesday, April 13th.
The regiment to-day received two months’ pay, and the sutler, King, was rendered happy if no one else was. The event was celebrated by the men in making large purchases of useless sutler’s stores, and by many of the officers in a reception at the private tent of the sutler, where, I regret to say, a large number did more than justice to several casks of ale and bottles of whiskey. Among those who distinguished themselves most conspicuously was Lieut. Blank, who, like the famous “Carrier of Southwell,”
“A Carrier who carried a can to his mouth well,
He carried so much and he carried so fast
He could carry no more, so was carried at last—”
into a corner of the tent, where he passed the night in quiet and peaceful repose.
Orders were received to-day directing a battalion of the regiment to be sent to the Artillery Brigade of each of the three Corps, and accordingly the First Battalion, under Major Sears, broke camp and marched over to the Sixth Corps. This disposition of our regiment is exceedingly distasteful to both officers and men, but as it seems that all hope of being supplied with a siege train must be given up, we look upon this as a sort of compromise between Artillery and Infantry, and though it looks very much as if we should become simply “hewers of wood and drawers of water” for the light batteries, we accept the assignment as the least of the two evils.
