Army letters of Oliver Willcox Norton (Eighty-third Pennsylvania Volunteers)

Stoneman Station, Va.,
Tuesday, March 24, 1863.

Dear Brother and Sister:—

Well, now about those officers. “Commencing with the Corporal” Imprimis (seems to me that’s commencing at the little end of the horn, though): A Corporal (there are eight of them in a full company) occupies about as responsible a position as a printer’s devil. As “Corporal of the Guard” it is his duty to post and relieve the guards and keep an open ear for the call of the sentry, “korboral of de gart, last number”—when that individual may have discovered a “mare’s nest” or wants to be relieved to attend to his Virginia quickstep. He is considered of little account, and his privileges are immunity from standing guard and all fatigue duty. He is distinguished by two stripes on the sleeve

The Sergeants come next (in your order), five in number. The fifth or lowest in rank is the Commissary Sergeant. He draws and distributes the company’s rations. The Fourth Sergeant superintends the details of guards and fatigue parties. The Third Sergeant and the Second in turn act as “Sergeants of the Guard.” As such his duty is to keep the names of the daily guards, form all reliefs and turn them over to the Corporal, turn out the guard on the approach of an officer entitled to the compliment. The First, or Orderly Sergeant, is the most important of any of the non-commissioned officers. He has more to do than any other officer in the regiment, except perhaps the Adjutant. He calls every roll, always forms the company, makes the reports, and does all the business of the company. His pay is $20, other Sergeants $17 per month. They are distinguished by three stripes on the sleeves, and the Orderly by the addition of a diamond. These marks are called chevrons. Of the commissioned officers I need sav but little. The Captain’s duty is to command the company. You know what that is well enough. The First Lieutenant takes command in the absence of the Captain, and the next the Second Lieutenant. These officers are distinguished by their shoulder straps. A Captain’s has two bars at each end. A First Lieutenant’s has one bar at each end, and a Second Lieutenant’s plain strap without bars. A Major has a gilt leaf on each end of his straps, a Lieutenant Colonel silver leaves. A Colonel has a silver eagle in the middle of each strap. Now, could you tell a man’s rank by his marks? If we go further up, I might say that a Brigadier General is distinguished by a silver star in the place of the eagle, and a Major General by two stars. Officers are also distinguished by the buttons on their coats. A line or company officer and a staff officer (Adjutants, Surgeons, Chaplains and Quartermasters) wear only a single-breasted coat. A field officer (Colonel, Lieutenant Colonel and Major) wears two rows of buttons at regular spaces. A Brigadier General wears three in a group, and a Major General two.

The meeting of the debating club last night was a feast for a hungry mind. The scene reminded me much of some exhibition at home. The building is a log one covered with canvas, and the seats mere logs, but a big fire was blazing in the fireplace, and the room was warm and comfortable. It was decorated with pendant wreaths and loops of evergreen, and two tasty chandeliers lit up the hall cheerfully. It was filled with well dressed, gentlemanly soldiers, and the exercises, a paper, a poem, and a debate, were so interesting I had hard work to tear myself away before it broke up, but duty first and pleasure afterwards is military style.

Stoneman, March 3, 1863.

Dear Cousin L.:—

I can never forgive myself for writing such a letter to you as I did last week. How it must have jarred on your already overwrought feelings, but, L., I did not, I could not, have guessed that the reason I did not receive my usual letter was that your baby’s cradle was empty. It grieves me beyond measure to think that I should have written anything that would add a sorrow by my thoughtlessness, when you had already all you could bear. I can only ask you to forgive my haste. If I caused you pain, believe me it was unintentionally done. I have read your letter again and again, and every time I have laid it down feeling that I could not understand it. Something of that feeling of loneliness I can understand. I know how ten thousand times in the day something reminds you of the lost, and how, as you move about the house lost in thought, your mother’s chair might almost seem to be occupied again, or you would listen as though you heard the little cry that told you baby’s awake, and then, as you felt the delusion and knew it never more could be, it seems to me I know something of that desolation that would creep into your heart, but that does not seem to be the main thought in your letter. There is a sweet and quiet joy, I might almost say, that I cannot understand. I can sympathize with you in your double bereavement, but in that consolation so precious to you I have no share.

I have asked myself again and again what is this mysterious power of religion that so wonderfully supports its possessor in times like this? How can she, while the earth is yet fresh above the coffin of her only child, and before the first blade of grass has sprung on her mother’s grave, so far forget her own sorrow and bereavement as to feel such an interest in me, a person almost a stranger in comparison with these? Oh, L., I believe I need your sympathy more than you mine. I cannot tell you just how I feel. I would be a Christian but I cannot. I mean there is a vague longing for that happiness I know must be there, but an unwillingness to do my part to secure it. I cannot even yet desire to be a Christian so much that I am willing to try. I wonder at myself and you will wonder, too, but that is only too true.

You say “we all have idols.” What is mine? If God should take my sister or my brother or my father I could not bear it as you have borne your loss, but I do not think they are idols. I hope I shall not wait to be driven home, but I’m afraid I shall.

If you cannot understand this confusion of ideas, this mixture of regret and stubbornness, you are no worse off than myself. I cannot understand my own heart. Your letters have aroused some latent sparks of tenderness, but I cannot see that that stubborn unconcern is gone—I only wish I could.

As yet all is quiet here in the army. It is just one week earlier than the time we started last year, but I hardly think we can move so early this spring. In fact it has seemed to me that no attempt would be made to take Richmond with this army. Two of the six corps have been entirely removed, and what remains is not strong enough to gain much except by strategy. Ah, well, I cannot see what we are coming to. If I had your faith I should be a better soldier.

Remember me in kindness to your husband, and, if I did not know you would do so unasked, I would say—remember me in your prayers.

Stoneman Station, Va.,
Sunday, Feb. 15, 1863.

Dear Brother and Sister:

I received your letter last night, and, as you say my letters don’t come too often, here goes for the answer in hopes to get another soon.

Really you have been having a time visiting. Hope you don’t go as some folks I have heard of, just to get something to eat. “Go it while you’re young,” or while the year is, and the sleighing lasts. By George, but I would like just one spanking sleigh ride this winter! Nothing but a 2:40 horse, drifted roads, a duck of a cutter, and a little ducksie with a duck of a bonnet would do me, though. I wouldn’t be worth a cent without a lively “schoolmarm” to help do it. Do they have any such in your part of Chautauqua? But talk of sleigh rides for me—it’s all bosh.

You need not look for me to be “one of the three.” I wouldn’t go if they should offer me a furlough. No doubt you want to see me, but won’t you want to see me more after three years? Such a coming home then will be worth talking about.

The winter is passing away rapidly. About three weeks more will bring us round to the same time we left Hall’s Hill last winter. Ah, then for another summer of fighting!

Captain C. W. Ayres, Ninth New York Cavalry, called to see me the other day. Con is a first-rate fellow. Straps on his shoulders add no “style” to his character. Perhaps now you don’t understand the military significance of that word. It is the same as “airs,” “putting on airs.” Charlie will remember him as we saw him soon after the first Bull Run. He says he is coming home on leave soon. He bought that farm Uncle Joseph is to live on.

I went over to see Alf day before yesterday. You may believe I have attended to my business pretty closely, when I tell you that is the second time I have ever had a “pass” to go visiting since I’ve been in the service. I found Alf well, enjoying himself like an oyster in the mud.

You may be surprised to hear that half this army is gone, because you see nothing of it in the papers. At least, I do, but it is a fact. The Pennsylvania Reserves, Ninth, Sixth and Second corps, are all gone, I don’t know where, and more are going every day. There was a rumor that the center Grand Division was to be withdrawn to the defenses of Washington and the rest of the army sent to reinforce our armies in the south and west. In my opinion that would be a good plan. We can do nothing here this winter, and if the war is to be fought out there is poor policy in keeping this army idle. Even if it is to be settled by writing, an overwhelming force at Vicksburg and New Orleans would be a good basis for negotiation.

So the cares of life have begun to fasten on you so soon! Don’t know what to do with yourselves, eh? Oh, don’t you wish you were soldiers, and then you wouldn’t have to know. All you would have to do would be to do as you were told.

I should think if the Adkins place was for sale it would be cheap. Some of the Virginia farms remind me of that. A house in the middle of a goose pasture. Well, now, how do I know but you have bought it, and here I am ridiculing your homestead? Well, I stop it. “Nuff Ced.”

Stoneman Station, Va.,
Sunday, Feb. 8, 1863.

Dear Sister L.:—

I send you a Harper’s, thinking you do not often see them. It is one of the choicest numbers I have ever seen. “The Picket” is a gem for a wood cut. It is lifelike and true. The officer’s uniform is an exact copy. Don’t it strike your fancy there is a bit of romance in the midnight—

“Who goes there?” There is, and much matter of fact, too. You see a good portrait of our “Little Dan” (General Butterfield), too. If I ever get home I’ll show you the bugle he took out of my hand to “sound the charge” at Bull Run. I’m proud to see him now Chief of Hooker’s Staff.

“The army stuck in the mud” is just as good as illustrated papers can make it. The road that looks like a river is mud, not water. In front of the barn you see a “caisson,” or ammunition wagon. The officers .on the jaded horses, the coffee pots and pails on the muskets, in fact the tout ensemble of the picture is first rate. The literary part of the paper I don’t think so much of, but the pictures are good. Keep it to show me when I come home. “Ould Graaly” is a decided hit.

Stoneman Station, Va.,
Friday, Feb. 6, 1863.

Dear E.:—

Wicks’ golden opinions of “Little Norton” may do very well to repeat at home. Perhaps he thinks, as he has said so much for me, I should return the compliment and praise him up to the skies. I can’t see the point. I don’t thank anybody to say that I have done more than I agreed to do, more than a soldier’s duty, and if any one says I have not done my duty, send him to me to say it. I don’t know what Wicks saw me do at Malvern Hill. I didn’t see him at all in the fight. I was under the impression that he was “taken with a sunstroke” just before the fight commenced. At Bull Run the boys say he did “fight like the devil.”

I don’t care anything about what he told you of my smoking. I could have told you that long ago if I had thought you cared anything about it. You all knew when I left home that I used tobacco some, and Mother and L. particularly urged me to quit it. I wouldn’t make any promises about it and continued to smoke, but a year ago last Christmas I did quit, and then I wrote home and told all about it. Well, not the first one said so much as “I’m glad,” or advised me to stick to it. I waited a month or so and heard nothing, and then I thought if that was all you cared about it, if it made no difference to any of you, it didn’t to me, so I went at it again. If Wicks had told you that I chewed two pounds of plug a week and a pound of opium, drank gin and gambled, would you have believed him? Well, if it makes any difference to you I will just say for your comfort that I don’t.

I am glad to hear that Wicks is looking so well. The boys who saw him in Alexandria said there was nothing left of him but his mustache. If I get down so low as that, I would not be much to load down an ambulance or a hog-car, would I?

No, siree, I wouldn’t take a discharge now if I could get it. You need not trouble yourself about that. If I did want one, I fancy (pardon my vanity) I could play off on the doctors and get it, but I don’t want it, and I would kick a man that would offer me one. As to being the “captain’s friend” I don’t see the point. I despise him too much for that. Personally I have no fault to find. He has always treated me well, perhaps favored me some, but I am not the friend of the man who always has the piles or something of the sort when a fight is coming off. At Hanover Court House he couldn’t keep up, at Gaines’ Mill he lay behind a tree and laughed while the men fell all round him. At Malvern he shouted retreat and ran like a greyhound and got shot in the back with a three-cornered something. Last summer at Fredericksburg when we expected a fight he was too weak to march, and we didn’t see him again till after Antietam. At this last at Fredericksburg he did go in and acted something like a man, the first and last time he has done so. When we moved last, expecting another battle, he couldn’t go, he had the piles. Should I be the “captain’s friend”? I don’t know that he has but one in the company, and he is a sort of sucker. Mrs. A. is a woman, a true woman. I respect her very much, and so does every man in the company. Nothing but that respect for her feelings prevents the company from complaining of him and having him cashiered for cowardice.

I think some of my letters must have been lost. Did you never get the one that told of Henry’s watch being lost? I felt so bad about that. I would have bought a dozen rather than lost that. I kept it till we got to Antietam, waiting for a chance to send it by express, but finally after getting Mary’s permission, sent it by mail, and it was never heard from. I took all the precautions I could to make it safe, did it up in a little box like an ambrotype, but the last I heard it had not arrived, and if it had, they would have told me.

I wrote you in my last how our march terminated. Did Wicks tell you anything about camp lice? I do not know that I have ever said a word about them in all my letters, but they are so plenty here that they are the subject of half the standing jokes and bons mots in camp. I presume you never saw one. They are the soldier’s pest. I never saw one till we got to Yorktown. They resemble head lice in appearance, but not in habits. They don’t go near the hair, but stay in the clothes, shirt and drawers. There is no way to get rid of them, but to scald them out. They will hide in the seams and nit in every hiding place possible. Cold water won’t faze them. They multiply like locusts and they will fat on “onguentum.” At the time we left the Peninsula they were plenty, and until we got to Antietam, more than a month, no one had a chance to wash his clothes in hot water. I do not believe there was a man in our brigade, officer, private or nigger, but was lousy. They grow to enormous size and are the most cunning and most impudent of all things that live. During the late snow storm the boys, for want of something else to do, made sleds of their jaw bones, and slid down the bank of the railroad. The other night after supper I was sitting by the fire smoking a cigar, when I felt something twitch at my pants’ leg. I looked down and there was one of the “crumbs” with a straw in his mouth, standing on his hind legs and working his claws round like a crab on a fish line. I gave a kick at him, but he dodged it and sticking up his cigar squeaked out, “Give me a light.”

I woke up the other night and found a regiment of them going through the manual of arms on my back. Just as I woke the colonel gave the command “charge bayonets,” and the way they let drive at my sirloin was a proof of their capacity. Any one of them can throw himself into a hollow square and bite at the four corners. I would be willing to let them have what blood and meat they wanted to eat, but the devils amuse themselves nights by biting out chunks and throwing them away. Well, this is a pretty lousy leaf, ain’t it? Most likely the next one will be something different if it is not.

Joe (my housemaid) is sitting by the fire picking his teeth with a bayonet and swearing at the beef. He says it is a pity it was killed, it was tough enough to stand many a long march yet. Well, it is tough. When Burnside got stuck in the mud, the artillery harness all broke, and the only way they could get the guns out was for the men to cut their rations of beef into strips, and make tugs out of them.

Stoneman Station, Pa.,
Friday, Jan. 30, 1863.

Dear Sister L.:—

Last Friday an agent of our benevolent but dilatory Uncle Sam paid us a visit and four months of greenbacked promises. He was an oily tongued fellow, and just euchred me out of $2.00 and over. The government owed me $6.41 on clothing account, and he paid me $4.25 and put the rest in his own pocket.

There were some rich scenes during his visit. One fellow in the Forty-fourth New York had been paid twice in hospital on his “descriptive list.” The first time he drew $52, the next by some oversight he drew $78, when but $26 was due him. He returned to his regiment and chuckled over his smartness in cheating Uncle Sam out of $52. He told it to everybody he knew, and when the pay-day came they were all on the lookout to see how he would come out of it. When his name was called he stepped to the table and Mr. Oily Tongue commenced: “You owe the United States $52, the United States owes you $48; $48 from $52 leaves you just $4 in debt to the government. Got the money?” He rattled it off like an auctioneer, and the tricky Ellsworth was non-plussed. He finally stammered out that he had not. “Oh, well, never mind, we’ll wait till next time, but don’t forget that $4.” Oh, you ought to have heard the smile that rose in the crowd! The poor fellow can’t stir out of his tent but somebody puts out his hand with—”Got the money?”

We have been having a big touch of winter for this country. Yesterday morning we had snow a foot deep, the most I’ve seen in Virginia. It was not very cold, but it is melting off now and it will make terrible roads when it is gone. Snow is twice as bad as rain for that. To-day is clear and warm, that is, thawing.

There is an order out to allow three men in each company to go home on furlough. This and other orders intimate to me that we are to stay where we are some time, or that we will not attempt another movement till the winter is over enough to make it safe.

Falmouth, Va., Feb. 25, 1863.

Dear Cousin L.:—

Though I receive a good many from here and there, your letters have had a charm for me I found in no others, and I have felt uneasy and restless when the mail has come night after night and no letter from you. I don’t know but I am babyish to think so much of my letters, but it is almost all I have to do now, to read letters and write and think, think. I get tired of this thinking, too, so don’t blame me if I write the second time in return for yours.

I received a letter a few nights ago that interested me very much. When I left home there was a young lady teaching in the village academy. She called the day I left to bid me good-bye and godspeed, and remarked that “she could not shoulder the musket but she was going to the war, not as la fille du regiment, but as nurse.” I am afraid I smiled a little incredulously. I did not think she was really in earnest, but was only saying something to express her sympathy for the soldiers, and every one had plenty of that. Before I left Erie, however, she had gone—tendered her services, been accepted and sent to St. Louis. I heard no more from her till I received that letter, and supposed she had long ago returned to her friends in Indianapolis, but all this time she had been in the army wherever she could soothe the pain or add to the comfort of the sick and wounded soldiers. Six months she was a prisoner among the chivalrous butternuts, much of the time in Corinth. I must confess I admire her spirit, don’t you? She was not bound, as our volunteers are, for any length of time, still she has not deserted yet. “Weary often, but never tired,” she writes.[1]

One of my tent mates left me yesterday morning to report in New York. He goes to receive a commission in one of the black regiments. He has been in the service three months, has never seen a fight except from a distance, and cannot tell to-day whether to hold his gun at shoulder arms with the barrel or rammer to the front. He has been a bugler, an orderly, and the brigade postmaster since he came out, and has never drilled at all. Friends got him the commission. If our negro soldiers are officered by such men, I’m afraid they won’t amount to much.

Whenever you have leisure, remember that I would be very thankful for a letter. Do not think me too much a reprobate. I have made a discovery—there are some in the army who try to live Christians. The other night I stumbled on a little prayer-meeting. The gathering was small, only seven, but it did me more good than many a sermon has.

[1] Note.—Her name was Ada Johnson

Stoneman Station, A. C. & F. R. R., Va.,
Sunday, Jan. 25, 1863.

Dear Sister L.:—

I thought the subject of bugler was exhausted, but I see you want to know more about it. I am chief bugler of the brigade. My duties are, in camp, to sound the calls for roll calls, drills, inspections, guard mounting, etc., at regular hours each day; on the march, to attend on the general in command and sound the calls to march or halt and rest, strike tents and form in line, etc. In short, to act as mouthpiece for the general. So much for duties. As to privileges —one, I’ve nothing to do but bugle; two, my luggage is carried in the headquarters wagons; three, I get better rations than in the regiment, and more of them; four, I get my wood hauled, and in the regiment the men have to carry all they burn a long distance. Well, there are four, perhaps that’s enough, but I might add others. As to the horse, I have one now, and a splendid one, too. He would be worth $175 at home. Colonel Vincent, acting as Brigadier General, went to the brigade quartermaster and told him to furnish me a horse that I could carry the brigade colors on and keep up with him. He is a dashing rider, and no raw head and bloody bones could keep up with him, so he gave me a beautiful black horse, and I am now the brigade color bearer and bugler. My pay should be $21 per month, but I don’t think I shall get now more than $13. They have commenced to-day paying our brigade four months’ pay. Nearly seven months are due.

Well, Burnside has moved again, and got stuck in the mud. That is the short of it. The long of it was the five days it took us to get six miles and back to camp. It beat all the Peninsula mud I ever saw, and demonstrated the falsity of Burnside’s theory that if twelve horses couldn’t draw a cannon twenty-four could. The more horses the worse it was.

We got back to our old camps yesterday, and I apprehend we shall stay a while. The army cannot move in this climate in the winter, and perhaps the people will believe now that “Little Mac” was right in not moving last winter.

Stoneman Station, Va.,
March 16, 1863.

Dear Cousin L.:—

I received a letter from O. M. last week. He appeared to be enjoying himself well. The weather was June-like, and the boys went round in their shirt sleeves when off duty.

He says there is a nigger regiment near him with black commissioned officers. What do you think of that idea? Contact with the contraband has so modified his ideas already that he don’t like to see them in the same uniform he wears, and woolly headed captains are a step in advance of his ideas. Ain’t you glad you wasn’t born in the South where such ideas originate?

Just as you say, there is nothing to write about the war. “Pugnacious Joseph” still maintains a state of masterly inactivity.

We had a thunderstorm last night, but the storm was snow. Robins were singing in the morning. That was spring-like, but this morning is winter again.

Of course I cannot move till we get the command, so I am waiting the progress of events. A constant indulgence of my Kendallistic propensities enables me to keep a stiff upper lip.

From home I hear that father expects to move to Michigan in April. I shall have no home to go to now, will I? L. is gone and it never did seem like home when she wasn’t there. I shall have to look out for myself if I ever do get through the war.

E. writes me that he don’t want to go west, but if I will only say the word he will be down here in the Eighty-third as soon as steam can carry him. He is not eighteen yet, but will be to-morrow, and I think he better wait, don’t you? I have had all I could do to keep him at home. He promised me once that he would not enlist without my consent, and the next letter I received from him he was in a company in Harrisburg. He excused himself on the plea of extraordinary circumstances (Stuart’s raid into Pennsylvania), and I couldn’t blame him much, as he went home again soon. Perhaps you will think I do wrong to discourage him, but I cannot bear the thought of his coming. It seems to me one in our family is enough, but I am afraid that, just so sure as there is another excitement, he will come. He will never go home if he does, at least so it seems.