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

Camp Wright, Hulton, Penm.,
July 14, 1861.

Dear Sister L.:—

I spent the morning of the Fourth in writing letters. In the afternoon Colonel Grant read the Declaration of Independence, and Captain Porter delivered an oration to the soldiers and citizens in a neighboring grove, after which we had a review of the four regiments and a dress parade and adjourned.

Since the Fourth, there has been considerable excitement in reference to our pay. Orders to pay and countermands have been received in quick succession. Seven different days have been set, on which we were to receive our $17.23, which, probably is all we will ever get. Payment is now postponed to Tuesday. Our time, as made out on the pay-roll, closes one week from to-day (the 21st), but I doubt our getting home before the 1st of August.

The latest reliable news is that we are neither in the United States or State service, nor ever have been, and that we will all have to be mustered in for three months before we can draw a cent of pay. This will be done to-morrow.

The Erie Regiment is one grand fizzle out. We left home full of fight, earnestly desiring a chance to mingle with the hosts that fight under the Stars and Stripes. For two months we drilled steadily, patiently waiting the expected orders which never came but to be countermanded. We have now come to the conclusion that we will have no chance, and we are waiting in sullen silence and impatience for the expiration of our time. The State of Pennsylvania cannot furnish a better regiment than ours, and yet, where is it?

I try to look beyond this abuse and see a glorious government that must be sustained, and I feel as ready to enlist for the war to-day as I did on the 26th of April. I have written H. B. to find out what inducements there are to join his company. I would like to go back to old Ararat again and go in with him and D. T. I think if they raise any company there at all, it will be a sterling good one.

I am glad you write so much news when you write. Father’s letters are just like newspaper articles. If any letters come there, for me, please send them with the least possible delay.

Camp Wright, Hulton, Penn.,

Thursday, June 27, 1861.

Dear Brother E.:—

We’ve had pretty spicy times in camp for a week or ten days. Marching orders are given and immediately countermanded. It’s pack up, then unpack and make fun of it. One of the boys stuck up a picture—a courier driving at the top of his speed, shouting, “Hurrah! Marching orders;” and another following hard after, calling out, “Hold on, blast ye; they’re countermanded.” They call it, “The Erie boys’ experience,” and it is a pretty good hit.

The boys resort to all sorts of expedients to kill time. A good many of them are making clam-shell rings. It requires a good deal of work to make one, but they are the prettiest rings I ever saw. Some of them look like pearl, some are blue and some like carnelian. They take a high polish.

One of the Wildcats had a mud-turtle yesterday. He made a little seccsh flag and tied it to his hind flipper and made him trabble with it, dragging it round in the dust. It made some sport.

The Armstrong Rifles had a veritable secession flag, hanging bottom side up on their quarters, yesterday. It was captured at Philippi and sent up here. It was made of muslin, three stripes and seven stars, tin ones at that, an elegant thing.

I spend a good deal of time in the river. I am improving some in swimming. Swam across the other day at the widest place in sight. Some of our company found the body of a man in the river the other day. He appeared to have been in the water a long time. He was standing erect with his feet firmly bedded in the bottom, and his head about two feet under water. One of the feet broke off in pulling him up.

Well, I must stop. I do not know as there is anything in reach worth sending you as a curiosity. If I find anything, however, I will remember you.

Don’t fail to write again soon. I think your last is the best letter I ever saw of yours. Write often and you will improve. Direct to Camp Wright, Hulton, care of Captain D. W. Hutchinson.

Camp Wright, Hulton, Penn.,
Saturday. June 22, 1861.

Dear Mother:—

None of the boys have had any letters for a week. At last they begin to come and all bring news, “we heard you were coming home.” Well, the origin of that story was this: Colonel McLane received orders to start for Harrisburg, where his regiment would be sworn in for three years. A vote was taken and not over half the men would enlist for that time, and it was reported that the remainder would be sent home, and the regiment filled from other companies in camp. As usual, the order was countermanded, and we are here yet.

Yesterday a dispatch was received saying we were to be armed and

Sunday morning, 23d.

I had got as far as that yesterday when I was stopped by the cry, “Fall in, marching orders are received, we’re off by the first train,” etc. I put away my writing, seized my gun, and was in the ranks in a short time. The cannon was booming out our joy, and amid the wildest cheers we marched to the guard house and reported to the “Officer of the day,” who said the orders were to have everything packed and ready to leave by 2 o’clock. We returned to our quarters and commenced packing, when, as usual, the orders were countermanded. General McCall telegraphed, “Hold on, don’t start till further orders.” The further orders have not come yet. Here we are at 11 a. m., to-day, and three companies are detailed for guards, Companies E, F and K, showing that we will not leave to-day.

We are ordered to Harrisburg to receive uniforms and equipments, and we expect to go from there to Western Virginia.

That is the fourth time we have had marching orders countermanded. Colonel McLane telegraphed to Harrisburg that he should start for Harrisburg or Erie on Monday. If his regiment was not ordered off he would take them home. The arms were distributed to the regiment a few days ago, and we are having the most severe drill. The thermometer stands in the neighborhood of 100 most of the time and they take us out about two hours at a time and keep us marching till the sweat pours off in streams.

I think this severe drilling shows that we are to see service soon, though when or where, we cannot tell. A soldier is a mere machine and has no business to know anything except his duty. His officers take care that he does not.

Camp Wright, Hulton, Penm.,
Saturday, June 15, 1861.

Dear Father:—

Our camp this week has been the scene of a good deal of confusion and uneasiness. I clip an extract from this morning’s Dispatch that explains the cause.

We have been told by some officers that “We were accepted; we were going to Chambersburg; we were not accepted; we were accepted for three years; those who would not enlist for the war would be sent home; they would be kept here till their three months expires; that Companies A, B, C, F and I only, would go for the war, and the rest would be disbanded,” and within ten minutes Major Schlaudecker has told me “that none of the companies would go; that we would all go together, one way or the other.”

Acting on the statement that our company would not go, I went this morning and put my name on Company B’s roll for the war. Our Captain said “No man should leave his company till it was disbanded.” The Colonel said “Any man who chose could enlist in any company in the regiment to go for the war. Captains notwithstanding.” “Father said I might and mother said I shouldn’t,” and I concluded I would do as I was a mind to.

The statement that the companies could not be filled in time to report according to orders, is probably the true one, and so that performance will not amount to much.

Such a feeling pervades the minds of the soldiers that discipline is played out. Company K refused to turn out to roll call the other morning, and day before yesterday, not a man of them appeared on dress parade. Company F would not come out on parade yesterday.

Night before last a row broke out in a beer saloon near the depot and some of the Pittsburgh boys cleaned out the whole thing, broke in the doors and windows, smashed up the glass and furniture. A crowd collected and Colonel Grant was obliged to call out Companies B, G and I with their guns to disperse them. Company G charged down the road and across the railroad track through the thickest of them. They made quite a determined stand on the track, and some six or eight were wounded before they would leave. A man stood before me and I called to him twice to stand back. He did not move and I ran my bayonet into his side an inch or so. He started then. He was awful mad. The wound was not a serious one, only a flesh wound, but he swears he will shoot the man who stabbed him. He has been hanging round our quarters with a revolver several times lately, and pointed out a man who, he says, stabbed him, but he has got the wrong man. I think I am safe enough unless some one peaches. Only three or four in our company know who it was. M. W. Goold pricked one man, Godfrey. Wheeler and others pricked some, but none were seriously hurt. I have carried a revolver for a day or so, and I think I am all right.

The way we have been treated is enough to make a preacher swear, almost. We are cheated in our rations about half the time. Our clothes are all dropping off from us. We don’t know whether we are accepted or not, or that we will ever get any pay.

We have been practicing at target shooting lately. Our guns beat everything I ever saw to shoot. The balls are very heavy, eleven to the pound. We were shooting at “Old Jeff” yesterday, at forty rods, and over half the boys hit him. We broke his back, legs, arms, and knocked his teeth out. This morning, since I commenced writing, nineteen of us have been shooting at a target at twelve rods. Thirteen balls struck the board, nine inside the ring and four hit the center. I call that good shooting. I, of course, am not among the best, though I hit inside the ring. One ball went plumb through an oak tree, nine inches in diameter.

The orders this morning are that we must commence drilling again, and have every man attending to his duties or lying in the guard house.

I hope you will write as often as you can. It seems to me my letters are like “angels’ visits.” My health is excellent. It never was better. I am in the river every day. The river is about one hundred rods wide here, with a swift current. I rolled up in my blanket the other night and slept under an apple tree. I slept first-rate, did not wake till reveille, nor take the least cold. The boys are all getting considerably copper-colored in the hot sun. The weather is warm and dry. The Dispatch says the thermometer stood at 102 yesterday at noon.

P. S.—At 12 m. It is definitely settled now that we are to stay in the State service the remainder of the three months. No companies will leave the regiment. According to past experience, we expect this changed in a couple of hours.

Camp Wright, Hulton, Penn.,
Sunday, June 9, 1861.

Dear Sister L.:—

I wish you could just step in and see us here, say on a dress parade. We are in just as beautiful a place as I ever saw. The lovely Alleghany rolls along at the foot of the hill, and the little country seats nestled in quiet nooks, the new buildings in camp, the groves and orchards, the lane that leads to the river, and the beautiful mountain rising up on the other side of the river, make a picture I never saw equalled.

I wrote to H. yesterday that we were accepted and were to be mustered in immediately. The Colonel received a telegram last night from the Secretary of War, saying that we would be taken for three years, unless sooner discharged, or we would be sent home. That you see materially alters the case. I don’t know how it will work. Some whole companies say that they will not go. We shall know in a day or two. I hardly know what to do. It seems a long time to live such a life, but if I am needed, I must go. If our company goes as a company, I shall go too. If not, you may look for me home soon.

I just wish I could have seen you last night instead of reading your letter. I thought perhaps you were having a good time about the time I was reading that letter. I sincerely hope the choice you have made is a good one. Give my respects to C and tell him, I think, as matters stand, the sooner he and I become acquainted the better. I would like to have him write to me.

I think from what you write, that vegetation must be more advanced here than there. Potatoes and corn are six inches high, and clover in bloom. I saw strawberries and cherries in market yesterday.

H. B. wrote the other day that his folks had adopted a daughter about fifteen years old, and that L. C. was a secessionist. He had a big fuss with the boys who put up a Union flag near his house, threatened the life of some, sued others, and was bound over himself to appear at court to answer for his rabid conduct.

Well, I must stop. I hope you will not wait so long before writing again. I am so anxious to hear from you often. If there is anything you expected to see, that is omitted, you may hear it in the future. My address is Camp Wright, Pittsburgh.

Camp Wright, Hulton, Penn.,
Saturday, June 8, 1861.

Dear Sister H.:—

You will see by the date of this that I have left Camp Wilkins and am now at the new camp called Camp Wright. We arrived here to-day. Oh, I tell you we have a splendid place, fifteen miles from Pittsburgh on the south bank of the Alleghany. The barracks of the Erie regiment are sheds seventy-five feet long and twenty feet wide. They stand in a row with an alley ten feet wide between each two. Each shed is divided by a partition running through the middle, making two long rooms ten feet wide. Each company occupies one room in one shed and one in the next shed across the alley.

At the head of the alley are the Captain’s quarters, overlooking his whole company. The railroad runs between the camp and the river and on the other side of the railroad is the parade ground, a beautiful meadow of ninety acres. The barracks are built on a side-hill so that the upper end rests on the ground and the other is some six feet from the ground. The floor descends about seven feet in the seventy-five, making quite a slope. The tables are wide boards hung on hinges to the side of the wall. We are to sleep on the bare floor. We have just the best of spring water and it tastes good after drinking the nasty river water which we had so long in Pittsburgh.

There is a large orchard in camp and a grove of beautiful shade trees. A little brook runs through a shady hollow down on one side, and every one seems delighted at the change from the foul, dirty camp to this beautiful place.

But we are not to stay here long. Colonel McLane received a dispatch from Washington yesterday, saying that we were accepted by the Government, and were to be mustered into the United States service immediately, those who are willing for three years and the others for three months from this time, those who will not enlist for three months to be sent home. I shall not enlist for three years now. I will wait till my three months are up. We are to be uniformed and equipped immediately. We expect to be ordered to Western Virginia or Harper’s Ferry, though, for good reasons, we are not told where we are going.

A large amount of cartridges were sent off from the arsenal Thursday night, and troops are moving south from all directions, showing that something is to be done and that soon, too. Perhaps the war movements will not be so interesting to you, so I will tell you of a visit I paid to a glass factory yesterday. I never was in one before and it was quite a sight to me. A dozen or more great furnaces were filled with boiling glass, and a boy would run up and stick in a long rod, give it a turn and take out a dumpling of the red-hot liquid and hold it over an iron die, when another would cut it off with a pair of shears and bring down a lever on it, pressing it into a mold, and then pull it back and turn out a beautiful salt-cellar or sugar-bowl like yours, or a tumbler, a lamp, a sauce-dish, or whatever the mold happened to be. At another place they were blowing bottles and glass jars, such as they have to hold candy in shop windows. A man takes a hollow rod, runs it in the furnace and brings out a little wad of glass, then blows it a little and it swells out just like a bubble. He then whirls it over his head a few times and blows a little more, rolls it round on an iron plate to make it round, clips it off with a pair of shears, and another man stabs a fork into the bottom of it, and heating it, passes it to another who shapes the neck and mouth. They would make twenty in the time it takes me to tell you how they make one. One of the workmen kindly handed me his pipe and told me to blow a bottle. I did, two or three of them, and blew some glass bubbles, a piece of one of which I send to you. I think you never saw thinner glass, at least I never did.

While I was down to the river yesterday, I saw a curiosity—a tree growing downwards. The roots were in the top of the river bank, and the trunk hung right down and the branches curved upward.