Jones’ Landing, Va.,
Sunday, October 9, 1864.
My Dear Sister L.:—
You will be glad to know that I am out of the hospital. My adventures in getting away ought to form a chapter in the secret history of the war, that the people may know how rascality flourishes in high places. They were making about fifty cents a day out of me, and of course did not want me to leave, and I was a full week in settling up. First, my bill must be paid, but when I applied for the papers to enable me to get my pay, they put me off with trivial excuses time after time, till at last I got my “back up” and told the surgeon that if my papers were not forthcoming by the next morning (Wednesday) I would desert to my regiment, report to General Butler, and learn why an officer must be detained after he wished to join his command. I went back to my room and in five minutes after, an orderly appeared with my papers all ready and signed.
Wednesday I started for the front, reached the regiment at noon of Thursday. Found them occupying a line of works about five miles from Richmond on the left of the Tenth Corps. They seemed very glad to see me. The regiment is very short of officers. Three were wounded in the battle of the 29th, Captains Cooper and Richardson (late Adjutant) and Lieutenant Cone. He, poor fellow, lost his leg. I found Lieutenant Evans in the adjutant’s place. Had I been two days earlier, I would have had it, but now I have something full as good while it lasts, of which more anon.
The accession of several new regiments of colored troops to our division made the formation of a new brigade necessary, and it was made of the Eighth and Forty-fifth United States and Twenty-ninth Connecticut Colored Troops. Colonel Ulysses Doubleday of the Forty-fifth commands. Burrows, our regimental quartermaster, was appointed quartermaster of the brigade, and yours truly was selected to fill the vacancy made by the promotion of Burrows, and now I am Acting R. Q. M. of the Eighth United States Colored Troops. These capitals I suppose are unintelligible to you and I will tell you about them. R. Q. M. is Regimental Quartermaster. His duties are to supply the regiment with rations, forage and clothing, take charge of the officers’ baggage and attend to the transportation for the regiment. Of course he is mounted, a fine thing for me, and a fine thing for my friends is that a quartermaster is not a fighting man. His duties faithfully done are as necessary to success as those of any branch of the service, but they are not dangerous and he does not receive the credit for it that a fighting man does. I have had a good share of duty in the line and can afford to let some one else win the glory now while I take it easy.
It will be a relief to you to think you can read the lists of casualties after a battle without the dread of seeing my name among the killed or wounded. I mean to master every detail of the business if I remain in it any time. You will notice that I am only “Acting” quartermaster. Burrows still holds his appointment of R. Q. M., but is acting in his new capacity. I cannot get the appointment of R. Q. M. till he vacates it by promotion or otherwise, but while acting I have all the privileges and immunities of a full quartermaster. One of the former is being nine miles in rear of danger, seated in my tent by a good fire—a big thing on such a day as this.
