ARMY LIFE AT WASHINGTON.
Meridian Hill—Neighboring scenery—First Sunday in camp—Drills—Sickness—The Hospital—General Casey—"Why don't the army move?"—Washington blockaded—Burnside's heroes—Orders to move—Something of a train—Smith's division—Our first reconnoissance.
We encamped on Meridian Hill December 1st, 1861, with 960 men.
Meridian Hill is the most delightful locality in the vicinity of Washington. The plain on which the city stands, extends northward from the Potomac about two miles where it is abruptly terminated by a line of hills. From the summit of these hills stretches back another plain, at an elevation of one or two hundred feet above the first. Along the margin of these eminences were some fine old suburban mansions. On our right towards Georgetown, was Kalorama, a charming spot, once the residence of Joel Barlow, the author of the famous poems "Hasty Pudding" and "The Columbiad." Now the building was converted by the government into a hospital. In close neighborhood to us was Columbia College, also used as a hospital, and to the east was the fine mansion of Colonel Stone, and other superb places, all of which, like Kalorama and the college, were full of sick men.
Meridian Hill was in the center of this line of once beautiful country residences, directly north of the President's house. It had been the residence of Commodore Porter, and the house still bore the name of "the Porter Mansion." The grounds had been elegantly laid out with box and juniper, while the rich groves of oak and chestnut surrounding lent additional charms to the locality. The hill was dotted with the white tents of a dozen regiments, but none were so pleasantly located as our own, under the shadow of those grand old trees.
The mansion itself became our hospital, and for a time also served as our head-quarters. From its broad piazza we could look upon the busy scenes of the city, and watch the vessels passing up and down upon the river. A week had passed before we were fairly established in our quarters, but we rapidly learned the mysteries of the soldier's life.
The weather was delightful; more like September than what we were accustomed to experience in December. Although heavy mists hung over us until nine or ten o'clock in the morning, they were dispelled by the warm sunshine, and then all was bright as midsummer. This lovely weather continued until about the first of January.
The country in rear of our encampment was charming. Fine groves, traversed by streams of pure, sweet water, and fields surrounded by hedges, stretched far to the northward. The dark green leaves of the magnolia were to be seen here and there among trees of larger growth, and the shining, ever-green laurel forming a dense undergrowth, gave the woods a lively and spring-like appearance. On the open plain might any day be seen a regiment of Lancers, wheeling and charging in their brilliant evolutions, their long lances with bright red pennons adding greatly to the beauty of the display, and, as we at that time vainly believed, to the efficacy of the troop.
The first Sunday came, and we had religious services. The regiment was formed in front of the mansion, every man being called out, unless on duty or excused on account of illness. This became an established rule with us for all time; every man was required to attend divine service unless especially excused. Chaplain Tully and the members of the staff occupied the piazza. The chaplain offered a prayer for the loved ones at home, and then we all sung "Coronation," and after the sermon, we sung "Cambridge" and "Old Hundred." The men seemed deeply affected by the simple service, and many a quivering lip betrayed the emotions of the heart.
Drills became the order of the day. Every morning the hill rang from one end to the other with the sharp commands of the company officers to "Order arms!" "Shoulder arms!" as the men exercised by squads. Besides the regular drill in the manual of arms, some of the companies delighted in that system of military gymnastics called the bayonet exercise. In the afternoon Colonel McKean usually trained the regiment in the more difficult exercises of the battalion drill.
But we began to feel the scourge of new regiments. Disease became almost universal. We had but a single medical officer and he was tasked beyond his strength. One hundred and fifty or two hundred men were prescribed for every morning, aside from those so ill as to be in the hospital.
The large parlors of the old mansion were neatly fitted up for our hospital, for which they were admirably adapted. The two principal wards were the large front parlors, which communicated by folding doors; the ceilings were high, and the large open fire places in either apartment served the double purpose of supplying heat and ventilation, so that while about fifty beds were always occupied, the air was kept fresh and pure. Typhoid fevers, typhoid pneumonias, diphtheria, and remittent fevers were prevalent, while now and then the malaria manifested itself in the form of the terrible spotted fever. Besides, as usually occurs when the last named disease prevails in camps, some died suddenly from unknown causes.
By the tenth of the month the majority of the men were unfit for duty. In one company the three commissioned officers were in the hospital, and but twelve men could be mustered for evening parade. The labors of the medical officer who undertakes single-handed to minister to the wants of a regiment of recruits can only be known to those who have tried it. Our doctor was as much worn out by the perplexities of organizing his department as by the actual attendance on the sick. New demands came almost every hour of the day and night, and it was only when the violence of disease had subsided, and another officer was added to the medical staff, that our weary son of Galen found a degree of respite.
We were in the command of General Silas Casey, a noble specimen of a man and a soldier. His manly dignity and kindly bearing impressed all with profound respect for him, and although we were but a few weeks in his command we never ceased to remember him with pleasure. The provisional brigade and division to which we were attached was frequently reviewed and drilled by the general, and made a fine appearance.
Thus the time passed until the opening of the New Year. Our men, like most fresh soldiers, were anxious for a fight, and were heartily tired of what they considered inglorious inactivity. Many of them expressed great fears that they would be obliged to return home without ever hearing the sound of battle. How greatly they were mistaken we shall see as we trace the bloody campaigns of more than three years of hard fighting.
Our friends at home were not unmindful of us. Boxes of clothing and other comforts for the sick were sent in goodly numbers; so our sick were well supplied with bedding and changes of clothing, as well as jellies and other luxuries. Our friend, McMicheal, of Congress Hall, Saratoga, thinking we could better celebrate the New Year with a good dinner, sent us one worthy of his fame as a landlord. Could Mack have heard the cheers of the boys that made the ground tremble as the four hundred pounds of cooked chickens and turkeys were distributed among them, his glory as a caterer would have been complete. With the New Year came stormy weather; rain was the rule, sunshine the exception. The mud became almost unfathomable and it was not uncommon to see the six mules attached to an army wagon tugging and striving with all their power to drag the empty wagon out of a mud hole. Boys who had plied the trade of bootblack gave up their profession and with pail and sponge in hand called to the passer by, "Wash your boots, sir?" During the lovely month of December we had been impatient for action; but now the oft repeated question, "Why don't the Army of the Potomac move?" became ludicrous to our ears.
Thus passed another month in drills and camp duties. Some recruits came to us, while many of the men who came out at first were found unfit for field duty and were discharged.
Distrust arose among officers and enlisted men of our army about the capital, in regard to the manner in which the army was managed. A wilderness of men surrounded Washington, and yet we were blockaded by the rebels on all sides except one.
Government was paying enormous prices for fuel consumed by the army, because the Potomac was closed, and all wood had to be brought by rail from the sparsely wooded districts of Maryland. Provisions sold at fabulous prices, and Washington was in fact a beleaguered city. Some rays of light from the west penetrated the thick darkness; but it cannot be concealed that while the Grand Army stationed about the capital panted for action and longed for the glory of the battle-field, a gloom possessed the spirits of the men, and a feeling, that all this splendid material was destined to a "masterly inactivity," prevailed. Our hopes were newly kindled when the affairs of the War Department passed into the hands of a live man, and when Mr. Stanton's practical energy began to be manifested both in the department and in the field. We heard from Burnside; first sad news, and then of success; and our hearts burned to be with him. Fort Donelson followed Roanoke; and Price's army was routed in Missouri. We envied the men who had been our nearest neighbors, but who had followed Burnside to the South. Glorious fellows! What cared they now for the fury of the waves or the hardships of short rations? We were afraid of being left as idle spectators of great things in which we should not be allowed to participate.
On the 15th of February came an order for us to move in a few days, and join Smith's division. This division lay upon the other side of the river, and although we had been anxious to move we did not wish to get permanently fixed in the mud by moving there. We knew little of General Smith or his division, only that the general had been trying very hard for some time past to get the regiment, and we had little hopes of good from the new arrangement. How little did we then suppose that the cross of that old division would be one of the proudest badges of honor that men could wear!
Sunday night came, and the order to move at once, came also. What a scene of confusion! We had never broken up camp before, and the excitement ran high. The pounding and tearing of boards, the shouting of men and braying of mules, combined in a grand uproar. Bonfires blazed from every part of the camp, and the whole night was spent in tearing down quarters and loading the stuff into army wagons as they presented themselves in great numbers. It was a rare sight. The camp glowing with a hundred fires, and the men and teams moving about among them like spectres. Morning came, and the teams were loaded, and the men ready to march. The teams drove out and formed a line reaching down 14th street from our camp nearly to the White House! One hundred and five six-mule teams constituted the train for our regimental baggage; and so much dissatisfaction prevailed among certain company officers that we were allowed twenty-five more teams next day! Rain had fallen nearly all night, and the prospect looked dreary. As the day advanced the rain came faster and faster, until it fairly poured. The men waded through mortar nearly to their knees.
It was three o'clock in the afternoon when we reached Smith's division and the ground on which we were to make our camp. The prospect was not cheering, and as two or three of our staff officers rode upon the ground, the place seemed forbidding enough. It had been recently the location of a thicket of scrub pines, but the trees had been cut down for fuel, and the stumps and brush remained, so that the mounted officers found much difficulty in reining their horses into the midst. Snow covered the ground to the depth of several inches. Here our men, tired and wet, cold and hungry, were to pitch their tents, cook their suppers, and make their beds.
The men fell to work heartily, and by dark they had cleared off the snow and brush enough to make room for their tents, and many cook fires blazed over the camp.
The regiments of the division showed us much hospitality, and a very pleasant acquaintance commenced on that day, which was destined to become earnest friendship. The next day was spent in putting the camp in order. As rain continued to fall, the mud in the company streets became knee-deep. Our sick, those unable to walk, had been left in our old hospital with a sufficient number of faithful nurses, under charge of the surgeon of one of the regiments that remained.
Let us for a moment glance at the composition of the division of which we now formed a part. We were assigned to the Third brigade. It comprised, beside our own, the Thirty-third New York, Colonel Taylor, a regiment whose gallantry at Yorktown, Williamsburgh and Fredericksburgh fully established its reputation as one of the best fighting regiments in the army. The Forty-ninth New York, Colonel Bidwell, a noble regiment with a noble commander, a regiment which could always be counted on to do all that men could do; the Seventh Maine, Colonel Mason, whose men were patterned after the pines of their own forests, tall, straight and powerful fellows, who never forgot their proclivities for hunting, and who were never so happy as when they could pick off a few rebel pickets with their rifles. The brigade was commanded by General Davidson, who afterwards made himself exceedingly disagreeable to the rebels, and famous at the north by his daring cavalry raids in the west. The first brigade included the Forty-third New York, Colonel Vinton; the Forty-ninth Pennsylvania, Colonel Irwin; the Sixth Maine, Colonel Knowles; and the Fifth Wisconsin, Colonel Cobb; all of them excellent regiments, under command of General Hancock, who has since placed his name high on the roll of fame as the commander of the old Second corps.
The Second brigade was composed entirely of Vermont troops, including the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Vermont regiments, commanded respectively by Colonels Henry Whiting, B. N. Hyde, E. H. Stoughton, L. A. Grant and N. M. Lord, and known as the "Vermont Brigade," and nobly did they sustain the traditional reputation of the Green Mountain Boys, as stern patriots and hard fighters. They were commanded by General Brooks, who afterward commanded the Tenth corps.
General William F. Smith, or, as he was familiarly known, "Baldy Smith," commanded the division. He is too well known to all who admire a true soldier to require more than a mention here, and his great fame has been well and faithfully earned.
No more splendid material, either for officers or men, ever entered into the composition of a division, and how nobly it played its part in the great drama of the war, it shall be part of our duty to record. Drills, regimental, brigade and division, were again in order, and picket duty now became a part of our routine.
This would not be a faithful chronicle of the doings of the new regiment, were we to forget to relate the history of our first expedition into the enemy's country.
An order came one evening in February for Colonel McKean to take his regiment and make a reconnoissance towards Vienna. His instructions were to pass the picket line, advance towards Vienna, make a thorough reconnoissance and return.
The news spread through the camp, and the regiment was ablaze with excitement. Some who had been on the sick list, and were excused from camp duty, sought from the surgeon permission to accompany the expedition, while a few who had been, up to this time, well, were earnest in their applications to be excused from the march.
The regiment was formed at ten o'clock at night; thick darkness, darkness of the blackest and most intense degree, prevailed. One could scarcely see his neighbor whose shoulder touched his own. We were miles away from the enemy, but the men were to be instructed in performing their movements in secrecy; so the commands were passed along the line, as the companies were forming, in whisper. No lights were allowed, and we left our camp a column of blackness. We were presently joined by a guide who carried a lantern. We passed a great many regiments, all the while observing strict silence.
The mud was deep, very deep; some of the men lost their shoes in the depths of the mire, and some even lost themselves, and were only discovered when they arrived in camp some hours earlier than the regiment. Through the darkness we plodded until we reached our destination, at daylight on the following morning. Here we found bough houses which had been used by rebel cavalry; and the tracks of many horses imprinted only a little while before, whether by the horses of our own cavalry, or by those of the enemy, we never knew. The battalion was halted and scouts were sent to the front and on the flanks. Some of the boys who had lost their shoes in the mud before we had advanced the first mile, had made the whole march in their stockings; while others, who had been sick, looked as though they could never get back to camp. The companies deployed and marched through the woods, but as the enemy was on the other side of Vienna we saw no rebels. It was noon when we reached our camp, tired and covered with mud. Those who went laughed at those who remained behind, and called them "dead beats!" The "beats" tauntingly demanded of the others what all their demonstration had amounted to.
The New York papers heralded the exploit as a grand advance on the enemy, and we said little about it.