An unpleasant march through mud and snow brought the men to Potomac Creek where they stopped for the night. Next day they reached Accokick Creek and were marched into a dense growth of pine favorably located on sloping ground, and about three-fourths of a mile from Brooks Station.
Col. Brown ordered the men to build huts and arrange for a stay of months. Many of the little buildings were really comfortable. When the regiment moved into the wood the timber stood very dense but not large. A few days later not a tree was standing; all had been cut down and converted into building timber. Stone was scarce and many of the huts had fireplaces of wood well plastered with clay, the chimneys of sticks laid up in clay.
Once more were the boys of Co. G settled in house-keeping and ready for company. It was a pleasant camp in many respects. The health of the men improved, food was abundant, good water convenient, plenty of picket duty, very little drilling, mail regular; a sutler was adopted by the regiment, and finally came a paymaster, and Co. G were happy. This was the first time they received pay after being in the service, nearly six months. The sutler gave credit, however and thus had a tobacco famine been averted.
Paymasters are generally well received among troops. Many of the men had left at home dependent ones who needed relief. But in most instances the money was not really necessary. To be sure money was needed for postage but that was about all. Ginger-snaps, canned lobster and oysters, or jelly, and hair oil were better on the shelves of the sutler's tent. Sardines might also be listed, inasmuch as two of the boys of Co. G were punished for stealing sardines from a sutler.
Co. G were not out to inculcate morality, and felt the shame of detection in any case in which their honesty was involved with a sutler. They were modest men. Hugh O'Brien was shocked when he heard that those boys had been betrayed by one of the company who had partaken of the stolen sardines; and Hugh reached forward quickly and struck the informer, because he had "peached" on the boys. Hugh was too good a soldier to be severely punished.
While in this camp, Capt. Tuttle resigned and Lieut. Frank was made Captain. Hemstreet was promoted to first and Sergt. Gates second lieutenant, and John H. Roe to orderly sergeant. Co. G supplied officers on short notice to other companies if required and retained plenty of material made up and anxious.
During those dreary winter days, while the fate of the nation was undecided and the newspapers were wiping from the face of the earth the last trace of rebellion, fathers and mothers grew very anxious for their dear boys at the front. Some of them wrote fault-finding letters, deploring the war. The majority, however, never for one moment doubted the result. And the dear girls, how loyal they were. So tender and true. They were worth one hundred thousand men.
"Say, Mamie," wrote a comrade to his sister, "do you know that Dick actually kissed the last letter you sent him? I really believe he is licking the stamp this very minute."
"Please write me no more such nonsense as that, Sammy dear," she replied, "as I do not believe you. If true, Dick would soon suspect me devoted to the filthy habit of chewing tobacco. Father affixed that stamp."
Frequently a letter came from some fair one, a total stranger to the soldier; for the girls felt they were justified in waiving formalities, while risking censure from cynical people. Their letters were very acceptable. Nothing did more to hold the boys within the bounds of morality and decency than the kind letters from home. Many of them have preserved those pages, creased, crumpled and worn and to their last days will regard them as the choicest relics of the war-time.