Extract of a letter from a sergeant in the Seventy-first New York regiment to his wife.
Washington Navy-Yard,
Sunday, April 28th.
We arrived here yesterday, after a week of terrible labor and privation, but, I am happy to say, in the enjoyment of good health. Not a single case of sickness has yet come to my knowledge. We embarked on the R. R. Cuyler, with over nine hundred men; and, after a voyage of three days, without rest, without food — except in small quantity and poor quality — without good water, and with seven hundred and fifty men afflicted with the most distressing sea-sickness-we arrived at Annapolis on Wednesday, about noon.
Here I partook of the first real food I had tasted, consisting of oysters and crackers. We stayed at Annapolis, getting what rest we could, (I did not get any, as I was sergeant of the guard, and had to march on the relief every hour all night,) until two o’clock Thursday morning, when we were ordered to march for Annapolis Junction, about thirty miles distant. We got off about 4 A. M., and marched for eight hours, when we halted for two hours and were served with rations, consisting of two hard crackers only. We started again about 2 P. M., and marched six hours more till about 8 P. M., when we again halted and partook of corned beef, very little of it, and that little very tough, and a hard cracker.
The entire march was made with our muskets and heavily-laden knapsacks, through sand six or eight inches deep, and the thermometer from 75 to 80. At this spot we had an alarm, and were drawn up in hollow square with muskets loaded; but the alarm proved false. We started again at 10 P. M., and arrived at the Junction at 3 A. M., of Friday, the 26th, having marched thirty miles in about twenty-four hours, our only food being three hard crackers and a piece of tough meat. Here we were stowed away like sardines in a miserable, rickety old wooden building, which had evidently been used as a bowling-alley. We remained here (and without any food, except one pig, which was bought by our company and roasted in the woods and distributed, as far as it would go, among the men) till about 7 P. M., when we got on board the cars for Washington.
After getting comfortably seated, and, as we thought, about to start, dispatches were received that five thousand Baltimoreans, with a corps of four hundred and fifty artillerymen, were on their way to attack us. “Attention, battalion-disembark,” was the order given, and promptly obeyed by the regiment, which was drawn up in a line of battle in a field close by, and we were ordered to sleep on our arms. We remained here about three hours, when we again took the cars, (this alarm also having proved false,) and between two and three o’clock on the morning of Saturday, the 27th, we started for Wasllington, where we arrived at seven o’clock. We were marched to the City Hall, and took up our quarters in the large wooden building erected for the Inauguration ball last month.
Here we stayed till 3 P. M., when we marched to the Navy-Yard; we are quartered till to-morrow on a steamboat lying near; we then go into barracks in the Navy-Yard, and remain during our stay. Yesterday, in Washington, we had a bath and a good dinner of beefsteak and potatoes, which, after our sufferings from hunger, you will suppose was very acceptable. If I could have foreseen what I had to endure, I certainly should have made arrangements to be relieved at least from the want of food and from the knapsack. Keep up your spirits and have no apprehensions for us. We make our sacrifices cheerfully, as we know that our cause is the cause of our country, a holy cause; and that Providence smiles upon it.
