Camp near Petersburg, September 6th, 1864.
Our hospital is now pleasantly situated about three miles from the old ground and two miles from division headquarters. The grounds are laid out in the form of a shield, which is the badge of the Ninth Corps. Evergreen trees are planted around it, in double rows. Arches wound with twigs of evergreen; in fact, everything is arranged with taste, and at great expenditure of labor. Tents were nearly all pitched when I arrived with the last load. About sundown a division of the Second Corps marched past, and formed in line but a few rods distant. In a few minutes they were engaged in throwing up breastworks. I had received that truant letter of August 20th, which had miscarried, and had lighted a candle with a view to answer it, when the order came, “Pack up, boys, and get ready to move immediately.” In an hour tents were struck and loaded, the sick put in ambulances and the train in line, with orders to “move out a mile and await orders.”
This awaiting orders is never very agreeable, and a heavy thunderstorm did not add greatly to our enjoyment on this occasion. Seeing no prospect of an early move, my comrade and I lay down upon the ground, with a rubber under us, and a rubber over us, and “sweetly slept till break o’ day.” Soon as fairly light the train moved on, and at 8 o’clock we were in our old camp again, still to await orders. It is now 9 p. m., and we are in the same “blissful state of glorious uncertainty.” The sick remain in the ambulances. A railroad is being laid to connect City Point with the Weldon Road. It passes within a few rods of us. Nearly a mile of track is laid each day.
