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

Beverly Ford, Va.,

Sept. 7, 1863.

Dear Friends at Home :—

I am enjoying good health now, “and I hope these few lines will find you the same.”

The weather has been very cool for a week or so, and the nights so cold that we can hardly be comfortable under two blankets. It is growing hot again now, though I think the hottest weather is over.

I see no prospect of an immediate move. Every one seems to be settled as though he intended to make a stay of it, and yet for aught I know we may be up and off before night. We have been here a month to-morrow and the men are rested and supplied with clothing and just as ready to move to-day as they will be in another month, but the men I hoped to see here by this time filling up the skeletons of the old regiments have not come. Two hundred have been received in the Eighty-third. That is all in our brigade. They are all armed and equipped now and doing full duty and the Eighty-third looks something like a regiment again, but all the others need recruits as much as we.

This three-hundred dollar provision don’t suit me exactly. Not that it is a hardship, but it seems to me mistaken kindness on the part of the government. The practical working of the system is that the government gets $2,700 and one man for every ten men drafted. Very few men are unable in some way to raise three hundred dollars, and as a rule they raise it. The government may get considerable money to bounty volunteers, but they will be too late. We want the men now to finish up the job this fall. The papers say they are coming at the rate of a thousand per day, but I “can’t see it.” Of course I don’t know about the rest of the army, but they don’t come to our corps at the rate of a thousand per month.

Deserters continue to come over from the rebels, and if one could believe the stories they tell, it would not take many troops to wipe out Lee’s army, but I put but little confidence in them. Their statement of the feeling of the army is always colored with their own dissatisfaction. No doubt, Lee’s army is in a measure disheartened and the rank and file would be willing to accept any terms of peace, but their leaders have a way of dealing with that sort of enthusiasm so different from ours that we shall find a pretty large “obstacle” any time we start for Richmond, and for that very reason we want the men.

Every paper that I see lately is telling how nearly used up the rebels are and how soon the war will end. I think they are taking the wrong course, raising hopes and expectations that will be disappointed. Charleston is not taken yet and Richmond is not taken, and they won’t be for some time. I am now entered on the last of my “three years” and am not building any very big castles on what I am going to do before that is served out. There are few who have stronger faith in the ultimate triumph of our arms, but this thing of “a few days,” “starved out,” “no men,” “worthless currency,” and all that is played out. It will take a long pull and a strong one well backed up to finish the job yet. So much for the prospect.

My letters from E. inform me that he has changed his base. Bidwell dismissed him one day without a word of warning. From what E. writes, the only motive he could have had seems to be the fact that he was paying him more than he earned, and his excuse was shabby enough. Of course you have heard the particulars before this. I always thought E. had made a big bargain to begin with, and I think if the man had told him so and reduced his pay some till he could earn more, E. would have consented. Well, he won’t have that to contend against now, at all events. I don’t know what you will think of the propriety of his going away so and making a new engagement without consulting his parents. Perhaps it was not right, but I must say I admire the energy and self-reliance he displayed in thus looking out for himself, and the determination to do something in spite of disappointments. One thing is certain, he won’t have much temptation to dissipation on his “margin” of twenty-five cents per week, and his employer little temptation to discharge him for over-pay. I sent him one of my watches Saturday and the other one I can’t sell or give away to advantage now. I send five dollars in this and think I won’t send any more now, unless we are paid soon. I don’t expect any more till about New Year’s. It was the 26th of January last year before we were paid again.

I see that you, Mother, still talk about sending me something to eat. Now, I don’t think it will pay at all. I am doing well enough. Sometimes I think I would like a little butter or fruit, just as you wish you had the thousand and one things you don’t have and can’t get. But it don’t make any great difference to you in the long run, and it don’t to me.

H., your receipt for cooking “growley” isn’t worth a picayune. Soaking don’t help ’em.

Beverly Ford, Va.,
Aug. 30, 1863.

Dear Sister L.:—

We may remain here a month yet, and we may not stay twenty-four hours. I see no present indications of a move, unless the fact that the boys begin to feel like wild colts is a sign.

The grub beats all I ever saw in the army, and last week to cap the climax they gave us beets and pickled cabbage. The latter was splendid, put up in mustard.

The late news from the south has put everybody in the best humor and camp life now is tolerable.

The last few nights have been almost cold enough for frost. The days, too, have been cool, but we shall get more hot weather soon, I suppose.

How is it that you did not notice Uncle Legrand’s name in the list of drafts? It was in Alf’s paper.

That diary I mean to send as soon as I get another. I expect it every night now. It won’t be anything great as a literary curiosity, but the most I value it for is its account of the dates of our movements. You’ll find out all about my correspondence now. Don’t let it get destroyed.

I’m very much obliged for your offer to send me berries. If you do send any, dried ones would be the best. They would last better. The “perfumery” was all right, but happily I have no present use for it. E. sent me some, too, some time ago.

The great event of last week was the execution of five deserters from our division, which took place yesterday afternoon.[1] So much better descriptions will be given in the papers, that unless you want me to I won’t try it, but will send you a paper, and if I can, an illustrated paper with a sketch in it. I saw Frank Leslie’s and Harper’s men both sketching it. If you see anything in the account about the “bugler,” that’s me. General Griffin sent for me to bugle.

[1] Note. —They were George Kuhn, John Felane, Charles Walter, George Reinese and Emile Lai.

Beverly Ford, Va.,
Aug. 26, 1863.

Dear Sister L.:—

My memory for dates is not very good, but it seems to me the 26th of August must be your birthday. Twenty-two years old to-day, and married almost a year and a half, and when I left home you were only my sister of twenty with the alliance in prospect. How the time rolls away! Why, I begin to look for twenty-four. I have thought every day lately that I would write to you, but then I thought if I did that the mail at night would bring me your letter to answer, so I have waited, but to-day being your birthday, I must write a little at all events. I wish I had some present to send you, but I cannot think of anything now. Stay —I will send you my “Maltese cross.” It is a very simple thing, only a red cloth badge, but it may interest you from its associations, especially if anything should happen to me. I have seen letters addressed to our own boys begging them to send a badge that they had worn in some battle, and perhaps you may value even such a trifle, as something. I have worn mine through Chancellorsville, Loudon Valley and Gettysburg. It has lain between my head and a stone many a night since March. If it seems to you too trivial, you may give it to Sereno and tell him to put it on his cap. He don’t write any more. I don’t know what has “riled” him. Give him this secesh envelope and tell him I took it out of the pocket of a dead rebel away up on the top of a Blue Ridge mountain in Manassas Gap. He has been teasing me for something secesh this long time, and that is the “genewine article.”

We are living “just old gay” now. The commissary issues soft bread enough to keep us all the time, and potatoes, turnips, onions, beets and dried apples often enough to have something good every meal. He has some tomatoes to issue, so report says, this morning. We buy condensed milk of the sutlers and have milk in our tea and coffee all the time and it don’t get sour in hot weather, either. I have bought dried apples and just lived lately. The men in the regiments never had such fare as they have had since the close of the summer campaign.

And yesterday came the most glorious news of the war. The identical flag that the gallant Anderson and his seventy-three brought safely away from Fort Sumter, again floats proudly over its battered walls.[1] The fort is a ruin, but the Union is not. And better than all, fifteen great guns are throwing their shells over all the hostile works into Charleston itself. Their boasted “street by street and house by house,” “last ditch” defense is played out. If they don’t surrender or evacuate, the city will be battered down about their ears by men so far away they can’t see them. Oh, but I feel jubilant! I hope they will fight till the “last ditch” is taken and nothing is left of Charleston but a grease spot. How are you, copperhead? How does that news suit you? Abolitionists are at work down there. They are “good looking” and they will “come in.”

Captain Judson arrived some days ago with two hundred conscripts for the Eighty-third. He has gone back for more and soon the Eighty-third will be a full regiment again. The old army of the Potomac is filling up fast, but these new men desert awfully. I think they will quit that after a hundred or so have been shot. Three are to be shot in our division next Saturday. They were to be shot yesterday, but it was postponed. I think it will not be put off again. The whole division will be paraded at the execution. The men belong to the One hundred and nineteenth Pennsylvania (Philadelphia Corn Exchange), First Brigade.

Colonel Rice, who has commanded the brigade since Colonel Vincent fell, is appointed Brigadier General and assigned the command of First Division, First Corps. Our new commander is Colonel Chamberlain of the Twentieth Maine, a very fine man (formerly professor in college), but not much of a military man.

I still keep my position through the changes in the administration, and I have not much fear of losing it now.

E. writes quite often. Seems to like his place first rate. He has been home once on a visit.

I am most ready to send you my little diary, if you want it. I have sent to New York for a new one. Expect it Saturday or Sunday. When it comes I can send the old one. You won’t find it a very nice book. It is worn and discolored by sweat and rain and it is very brief. Much of it is no more than a record of the weather and of my correspondence, written in haste with a pencil after a long day’s march, but it will be a good reference if I ever get home, and I may write a more extended narrative from it. I am writing what I can in just such a book as this now and I am going to send it to E.

Now do write as soon as you can. That your life may be happy, with many returns of your birthday, is the fervent wish of your brother.

[1] Note. —Error: Probably a newspaper rumor. Sumter was not captured until 1865.

Beverly Ford, Va.,
August 22, 1863.

Dear Parents:—

I received a piece of paper from E. a few days since, saying that he had received my letter and would answer it soon. The answer has not come yet. The envelope contained the perfumery I sent for, and, if it is not effectual, I don’t know of anything that would be. Fortunately, I am not troubled with the “crumbs” now. All the men who ever are rid of them are so now. A good boiling does the business, but there are some who would be lousy if they had every convenience and a year’s time, and just as soon as we start on a march again they will be all over. “All is quiet on the Rappahannock” yet. The hot weather paralyzes both armies, but lying still they are gaining. The flies are so troublesome that horses do not gain so fast as they would in cooler weather, but they still improve some. Many of the cavalry regiments and batteries are getting new horses.

The commissary is issuing soft bread two days out of three, nice fresh bread, too, and, oh, if we had some butter! He issues small rations of potatoes and dried apples occasionally, and dessicated vegetables. I presume you have never seen any of this last. It is in square cakes an inch thick and seems to consist of potato, carrot, turnip, onion, cabbage, red pepper, etc., scalded and then pressed and dried. I am confident that if we could learn how to cook it we should like it. We are all hungry for vegetables, but I cannot cook it nor have I seen any one who could so that it will be good. We have put in fresh beef and made soup of it, and we have boiled it down dry and tried it every way we can think of, and don’t succeed yet. The fault seems to be that each vegetable loses its individual flavor in the cooking and all blend together in a nondescript sort of a dish that isn’t good a bit.

The principal topics of news in camp are the arrival of the conscripts and the departure of Colonel Rice. Captain Judson came down from Philadelphia this week with two hundred men for the Eighty-third, and he has gone back for more. Of the two hundred but three men, so they say, were drafted. All the rest are substitutes, and most of them two years and nine months men. They seem to be pretty hard nuts. They are very quiet here, but Captain Judson says they had quite a tendency to get lost on their way down.

Colonel Rice’s “eagles” have been setting a good while, and the other morning on waking he found they had hatched a pair of “stars” and “marching orders” to report in Baltimore, and with many thanks to the eagles he proceeded to obey immediately. The senior officer of the brigade now is Colonel Chamberlain of the Twentieth Maine, a former professor in a college and a very fine man, though but little posted in military matters. He is absent now on sick leave, though about to return, I hear.

Beverly Ford, Va., Thursday, August 13, 1863.

Dear Mother:—

I received your letter of the 5th night before last. Yesterday it was so hot that I could not write or do anything else but lie in the shade and sweat. I don’t know where the mercury stood, but I think it must have been above 100. It was as hot as any day we had on the Peninsula except one. Last night we had a furious thunder storm. The ground was completely soaked and I had fun enough this morning to last me a week.

Yesterday Colonel Rice had a large force of men putting up booths or shades of poles and brush over the tents. This morning they all fell down one after another and smashed down the tents. The colonel’s was the first, just about daylight. He came crawling out under the edge sans everything but shirt. He came in such a hurry that he could not keep his perpendicular and went sprawling in the mud. Then Lieutenant Grannis’ tent came down and he came out in the same cool dress like a mouse from a shock of corn.

We have just been paid $52. I’m going to send $50 home. Father inquired once what I did with my money lately. I don’t remember whether I explained about that or not, but I have not wasted a great deal of it. Since I have been at headquarters, I have had to keep a good watch. The time of everything is left to me. Well, last fall I had a watch stolen from me that cost me $18, I think, and then I bought another, and both had to be paid for out of the next pay. This last watch kept time splendidly all winter, but when we forded the Rapidan, it got wet inside and stopped entirely. I sent it to Erie for Captain Austin to clean. When I went back to headquarters I bought a watch for $10 which turned out to be good for nothing. I bought another for $15 which is a good one. Last Monday my watch came back from Erie, so now I have three. That is where my money has gone to, part of it at least. I am going to keep my old watch and sell the other two.

I dare not risk sending much money in a letter, so I am going to send $10 at a time. Let Father do what he thinks best with it.

I am very glad you are having so much fruit and such a variety too. I should like it very much if I could have some too, but you are so far away and everything sent by express is so uncertain of reaching its destination that I don’t think it would be best to try to send me any. Next winter there may be a good chance. There would be now if there was any certainty of our staying here any length of time. We have laid out three “permanent camps” this side of Warrenton. This is the best place we have found yet and I think we will stay here through the hot weather. I have no correspondents in Springfield now.

Beverly Ford, Va., Sunday, August 9, 1863.

Dear Sister L.:—

A new date tells you that we have moved. We moved once before since I wrote to you and had orders to make a “permanent camp,” but just as we got things nicely fixed for a comfortable stay during the heated term, somebody discovered that there was not water enough, so we pulled up stakes and moved to the river. Beverly Ford is a little way above where the railroad crosses the Rappahannock, so if you have a map you can see nearly where our present permanent camp is.

Headquarters Third Brigade, Bealeton, Va.,

Wednesday, August 5, 1863.

Dear Sister L.:—

Your letter of Tuesday evening a week ago reached me last evening, just a week on the way. I answer to-day, for here in the army more than anywhere else it is not safe to boast of to-morrow, for we know not what a day may bring forth. We lay at Warrenton a week. At W. I said, we were three miles south of town.

Last Monday morning four hundred men left the brigade to go somewhere for “fatigue duty.” I suppose you know that “fatigue” is duty where spades (or axes) are trumps. As soon as they were gone the remainder commenced laying out the ground for a permanent camp in accordance with orders. Well, at 4 p. m. came the order “Strike tents and prepare to march immediately.” Such contradictory orders used to excite a deal of wrath among the men. but I have noticed that lately nothing is said. The men are ready at the minute and march off willingly.

We started about dark and marched about five or six miles south to near Bealeton. You may have heard of that city, situated on the Orange & Alexandria railroad, and comprising one small building (railroad station), and one water tank.

We are in almost a desert. There are some trees and a little grass and weeds, but of all the poor soils I ever saw, this strip for six or eight miles each side of the railroad beats all.

I heard General Griffin (commanding corps) say yesterday that we would stay here till September and he ordered the camps laid out accordingly. This intention is evidently to be taken without reference to rebel movements. Should they make another invasion or that sort of thing, of course it would change our program. If they keep quiet I think there is a fair prospect of our lying still through the hottest weather. In the meantime our drafted men will be coming in, our decimated regiments filled up, and by the time cooler weather comes we will be in splendid condition. I do not think we will lie six weeks of the best part of the year as we did at Antietam last fall. General Meade don’t seem to be that sort of a man. But rest now is necessary, not so much for the men as for the horses. A week’s rest will do for the men, but the horses must have time to get a little more flesh on and to regain their lost strength. Why, every day since we returned to Virginia, every day we have marched, Battery D. Fifth United States, has turned out to die from four to ten horses. Many of these will recover and make good farm horses (the farmers pick them all up) but some are so far gone that they die in the road. Everywhere we march there is a dead horse or mule on the road every bad place we come to, and often there are three or four. I tell you hot weather and heavy guns use up artillery horses. My horse stands it just first-rate. He is as fat as he ought to be to travel and always feels well. All the grain he gets is about a peck per day. I kept him on hard tack for nearly a week in Pennsylvania. Our teams were twenty-five miles off and no grain to be had.

I think the last I wrote to you I told you that I had been sick. Lest you should worry about me I will say this time that I am well, as well as ever. My bowel complaint is entirely gone and I feel like myself again. I lost considerable flesh while I was so weak, but that will soon come again. Hard tack is good to fat a man that likes it, and, without butter, I prefer it to soft bread. Soft bread and the paymaster are both reported to be on their way here.

My letters have been very scarce lately. One reason, I suppose, is that I have written very few myself. I do hope they will begin to come again now. Soldiering without letters is hard work. I don’t blame you any for not writing. I know you have little spare time, but write just as often as you can.

Go in on the fruit and save all you can. Ain’t you going to save a little to send me next winter when we get settled? I think I could dispose of a little Chatauqua County fruit with the greatest pleasure.

I am very glad to hear that you have such good health, and I think you enjoy yourself well too, if your letters are any evidence. It does me good to know that your life is happy.

Tell Mercy Clark, if you write to her, that I am as much in favor of a vigorous prosecution of the war as when I first enlisted. I have just administered a filial rebuke to my parents for asking me to get a furlough because they wanted to see me. This war must be fought out, and while I have health and strength I shall not so much as think of leaving the field till it is done. If I am sick or wounded and sent to a hospital, it will be a different thing, but I don’t want to hear any whimpering from those I left behind. The only thing that I care to come home for is to make some of those copperheads hunt their holes. General Logan’s speech at Cairo the other day just expressed my sentiments. Every copperhead, peaceman, anti-draft man, every cursed mother’s son of them that does not support the war by word and deed ought to be hung or sent to the south where they belong. There is no middle ground. Every man who is not for us is against us, and I would just as soon fight a cursed copperhead as a southern rebel. Yes, rather, for they have means of knowing the truth and most rebels have not. If a man or a boy comes into your house and talks peace, or complains about the draft, tell him he is a traitor and you won’t listen to him. Drive him out as Orpha Dart did with a broomstick. I tell you when the old soldiers get home, such cowards and sneaks, traitors and rebels in disguise, will have an account to settle. It won’t be a pleasant neighborhood for them. The scorn and disgust the revolutionary tories met won’t be a circumstance to what is waiting for them. Maybe you think I am excited. I mean what I say at all events, and I have been so provoked and disgusted that I, like every loyal soldier, am down on every opposer of the war “like a thousand of brick.” I have no patience with them at all. I know that if I was home, I should have trouble with the first man that talked a word of such stuff to me.

Camp near Warrenton, Va.,
July 28, 1863.

Dear Parents:—

It is seldom that I have written so few letters after a great battle as I have since the battle of Gettysburg. I have had two good reasons, one that we have been almost constantly on the move since, and the other that I have not been able to write. I have said but little about it, not wishing to cause you anxiety, but for three weeks I have had all I could do to keep along in my place. The night of the 4th of July it rained tremendously, and I had little shelter and lay in water half an inch deep all night. I was too much exhausted to stand up or even to keep awake. I was wet through most of the time for a week after, and a very bad diarrhea set in which destroyed my appetite and made me very weak. I would not take doctor’s stuff, thinking I could wear it off as I always have done, but it held on well this time. At last I did take a physic, and when we got into Manassas Gap the blackberries cured me up. I feel more like myself to-day than I have for almost a month. Nothing but my horse and a firm resolve to hold out to the last has kept me out of the hospital this time. I could not have walked half a mile a good many days that I have rode fifteen. I could have found time to write a good many more letters if I had been well, but as it was, as soon as we stopped I could do nothing more than lie down and rest.

I received your letters of the 10th at Rectortown, on the Gap railroad. I was very glad to see them, the first I had heard from you since you received news of my safety. Two things in it surprised me—one was the direction—that letter was two days in the regiment before I got it because it was directed to the regiment. Always direct, “Headquarters Third Brigade, First Division, Fifth Army Corps, Washington, D. C.” Don’t put on regiment or company. Headquarters mail is pushed right through, when the large bags don’t come, and very often I don’t go to the regiment for three or four days, and any mail sent there waits till I come.

The other surprising thing was—”do come home.” As many soldiers have been spoiled by just such letters from anxious parents as any other way. Mother writes, “Come home; I do so want to see my boy if only for a little while.” Soldier writes that he would come if he could, and begins to think about it and chafe and fret at his bonds till he worries himself homesick and isn’t worth a row of pins. You have never said much to me of that sort, but it would not make much difference if you did. I made up my mind when I enlisted to stay till the matter was settled or my three years served out. As long as I am well I wouldn’t come home if I had a furlough in my hand, which, I might remark, is a place very difficult to get a furlough in nowadays. If I were sick and in a hospital, I should perhaps try to get home, but not while I stay in the field. This off and on soldiering is hard on a person’s nerves. You will be the more glad to see me when I have been gone three long years.

I am very glad, Mother, that you like your new home so well. Aristocracy in these days ought to be at a discount. Shoddycracy is pretty large in New York, they say, the hideous offspring of the monster war. I am afraid the army would not suit you very well on that very account, supposing you could be in it. One of the officers of my own company can write no more than his own name, and that scarcely legible, yet military rules require me always to touch my cap when I speak to him, as an acknowledgment of his superiority.

You ask if I have any fruit. I have had but little. Cherries have been plenty in the country we passed through, but I have had little chance to get them. We never know at what minute we shall move. Orders come at daylight, at sunset, at noon, at midnight, “Prepare to march immediately,” and the first thing is—”Bugler sound the general” (the call to strike tents), so that I am obliged to be always at my post. The men in the regiments scatter out in the country, get fruit and buy bread and pies, but I can’t leave and so don’t get much. Blackberries I have had a better chance at, for they are everywhere. You may know how close I am kept when I tell you that I have been trying for a month to see Edwin Willcox, and, though he has slept within half or a quarter of a mile from me a good many nights, I have never seen him yet.

I wish you would put up two or three cans of fruit for me, so that, if we go into winter quarters again, you can send them to me. Fruit is something I miss as much as anything in the army. The sutler makes no bones of charging seventy-five cents for a tumblerful of jelly.

I wish you would send me, if you can get it, next time you write, a little camphor gum and assafœtida. If you cannot get the latter send the camphor alone, just a little, what you can put in a letter. I want it to drive away lice.

In regard to that expression that shocked you so much. I am sure I meant nothing irreverent, and, as Father remarked, it is a common expression in the army for a hot reception of the enemy. Used in that sense, it does not seem so inappropriate, for such fighting, such bloody carnage belongs more to demons than to this fair earth. No reference to anything in their condition after death was intended. That is not for us to judge.

I had intended to write more, but a heavy shower is coming up for which I must prepare, and I shall have no more time before the mail closes.

We expect to rest here a little while, hope to, at least.

Headquarters Third Brigade, Loudon Co., Va.,

Tuesday, July 21, 1863.

Dear Sister L.:—

When I wrote before, if I remember rightly, we were in line of battle near Hagerstown and Williamsport, expecting another fight, but again the wary Lee escaped. We stopped at Williamsport the night after he crossed, and next day moved on after him, marching twenty-five miles and crossing the famous South Mountain. Next day we moved on again twelve miles to Berlin on the Potomac, four miles south, and in sight of Harper’s Ferry. Here we hoped to rest a little. We had reached a railroad and a good place for getting supplies, and men and horses needed rest. Thousands of men were barefoot, officers, too, and all were dirty and lousy. I believe I state a fact when I say that not twenty men (who carried their clothing) in any regiment but were swarming with vermin. They are the pest of the army, and though you hear but little about it, they are always here. More clothing is thrown away on that very account than is worn out.

I say we hoped to rest and get new clothes and shoes and boil up the old ones, but the pontoons were already laid and next day saw us in Virginia. We have been slowly moving down the Loudon Valley since. The weather is very hot, and eight or ten miles is all the artillery can march in a day, so that is all we move. We have got about down to the scene of our fight with the cavalry on the 21st of June. I must always think of the gallant Colonel Vincent in connection with that, but his sword is sheathed forever, and glorious “old Jim,” who carried Colonel McLane at Gaines’ Mill and the commandant of the Eighty-third, whoever he might be, ever since, has served his time and gone home to Erie. My horse is all right yet. He is a warhorse every inch. He will stand by a cannon while it is fired, without flinching, and I can ride him over all the dead and mangled horses that can be piled in his road. He don’t like the shells too near his ears, but I can manage him then. While our line was forming on the hill at Gettysburg I came out with him in full view of the rebel lines. They opened two batteries on us instantly, firing at the colors. Colonel Vincent looked to see what was drawing the fire and yelled at me: “Down with that flag, Norton! D—n it, go behind the rocks with it!” I obeyed, of course. I did not see him again until he was brought back wounded. When the rebels charged our line I left my horse and flag with the mounted orderlies, and getting a gun went in on the right of the Forty-fourth New York, just in front of where we dismounted. In the cavalry fight I followed Colonel Vincent everywhere with the flag, most of the time right up to the skirmishers, but there he thought I had better keep it out of sight.

I am nearer sick than I have been for a year. I couldn’t walk a mile, and if there was a hospital within reach I am afraid I should give up. As it is, I could only ride along in an ambulance, and as long as I can stand it I shall ride my horse. I manage to attend to my duties yet. I have never been excused a day, and if possible never will.

What glorious news of victory we are receiving! It looks as though we could see the beginning of the end. I wish the end were nearer.