Duty along the Potomac was not unlike that performed some weeks before, but in the interval these men had learned a deal; not only had they been drilled but they had observed that all of the people resident in the vicinity were not wholly loyal, that many of them were ready to pass the desired word along to the enemy whenever opportunity offered, and for such reasons they determined to piece out their own rations with whatever was obtainable from the citizens. Nothing that was edible and transportable was safe from the predatory hands of the men and boys who, a very few months before, had been conspicuous in their own localities for their sterling honesty and straightforwardness. War and so-called necessity worked wonderful transformations in these well reared New Englanders. If all the stories that have been told in subsequent years may be believed, the marvel is that the natives had anything left to subsist upon. December 23rd brought the camp-stores and equipage by way of the canal, and a large force was set at work cutting away trees to make ready for the new camp. The site chosen for the camp was that on which the regiment had halted at the end of its first considerable march, that from Arlington in the preceding September. A large detail of men from the several companies, not on picket, worked hard through Wednesday the 27th, to properly pitch the tents and so collect the men into camp once more.
Of course the 25th of December came to Camp Davis, the name of the new winter quarters, just as it did to the rest of the world, but signs of Christmas were painfully lacking. One youth made this record, "To-day is Christmas; four of us went out of the lines and got a Christmas dinner and had it charged to Uncle Sam." Furnishing food to Union soldiers in those parts must have been like a lottery with the chances against getting anything back. Said another observer, "Christmas day! And we would not know it by the work going on in camp; dined on salt beef, more commonly known as 'salt-horse'." The later days of the month were devoted to properly equipping the camp which, for location, was the best yet occupied except for wood and water, the latter having to be brought fully half a mile, and the former was two miles off. For Dec. 28, '62 purposes of drill the parade ground was unexcelled and was extensive enough to admit of the maneuvers of an entire division at one time. Once more the Sibley tents are stockaded and the men believe that winter quarters are really realized. In the light of later years, the occupants of that camp claim that there was no better in the entire army. Though located on a level plain, it was so well drained that no amount of rain was able to render it disagreeable underfoot, a fact which no doubt contributed to the prevailing health of the men.
On Sunday, the 28th, as the men were falling in for inspection, their eyes were gladdened by the sight of the Tenth Massachusetts Battery, subsequently known to fame as "Sleepers," approaching Camp Davis. This event is thus cheerfully alluded to in John D. Billing's excellent history of the Battery, "'How are you, Boxford?' was the greeting from the Thirty-ninth Regiment, as soon as we were recognized, and it seemed like meeting old friends to fall in with those who had been encamped with us on the soil of Massachusetts." It was a strange stroke of fortune that should bring these Boxford neighbors again so near to each other, for the battery was assigned to the brigade and found a camping place close by. This day, too, brought to the ears of many, for the first time since leaving Massachusetts, the sound of a church bell, but it was not for these soldiers, who were still perfecting themselves in the school of the soldier; lessons so well learned that the Thirty-ninth stood second to none in discipline and soldierly appearance, and better still in general health, conditions largely due to the unceasing diligence of the Colonel, with whom drill seemed to be the chief end of man, especially those wearing uniforms. Long before daylight in the morning of the 30th, an alarm brought the men into line and four companies of the Thirty-ninth with a single section of Sleeper's Battery started off towards Conrad's Ferry where, as usual, a crossing of the rebels was reported. In light marching order, over the most difficult of roads, the party hastened to the scene, as supposed, of trouble. Though there were the reaching of an island in the river by means of a boat and a certain amount of fortifying, nothing came of the affair and at 1 p. m., tired and hungry the return trip was begun, ending at 4 o'clock, with every one out of conceit with military movements. On the last day in the month the Regiment was mustered for two months' pay, always a welcome exercise.
1863
The new year was ushered in on Thursday, and the prevailing sentiment among the men is indicated by this entry in his diary by one who evidently had entertained other opinions, "The boys are rather blue on the war subject; they begin to think they will not get home in the spring." Very few soldiers had any idea of the many long and weary months before them. The first men who went out, the Three Months' Men, thought it hardly possible that it would take all of their projected term to wipe out the Rebellion, nor were the rebels any less in error in their estimate of the duration of the conflict. In the middle of the month, the same writer once more reflects thus, "Our hopes of getting home in the spring are somewhat blighted," yet he and his comrades attended strictly to duty just the same. As the month progressed, the men had full opportunity to size up and adequately estimate the village near which they were encamped. Like everything that ever fell under the blighting hand of slavery, it exhibited a lack of paint and enterprise. Poor Richard long since remarked that he who by the plow would thrive must either hold himself or drive. In the South the slave-owner did neither; superintendence was entrusted to the overseer and what work was done, the slave did. How well this was accomplished, the surroundings showed. It has been said that there were only two loyal men in the village, Mr. Metzger, the postmaster; and Dr. Brace. Under such Jan. 2, '63 conditions there need be little wonder that the Yankee boys thought it no sin to spoil the Egyptians.
It was in the night of the 2nd that some vagrant members of Scott's Nine Hundred, that redoubtable New York cavalry body, which in December had cleaned out Higgins' store, came back to do it again. On guard was F. R. W. Hall of Company F whose brother, Eben A., was performing similar duty in a neighboring building. "Whiskey" was the battle cry of the New Yorkers and they sailed in to wreck things. At first, to oppose them, was only "A little red-headed guard" and they soon found that that Hall could neither be hired nor scared, though he was extremely happy to find soon at his side the brother, supposed to be in another place. Both boys were "Sons of Temperance" and they proved to the rummies that, once at least, prohibition prohibited, for the Halls managed to keep the mob out till Lieutenant Paul appeared with the reserve guard; even then the raiders did not subside, for they formed under their leader preparatory to a fight. Not having their cavalry outfit with them, they gave way to discretion, always the better part of valor; and all the more readily when Lieutenant Paul gave the order to charge, and they rapidly disappeared in the darkness. They had succeeded in smashing all of the windows, however, and almost unroofing Hall, whose gory scalp was proclaimed the first case of bloodshed for the Regiment. Though Higgins might have been a rebel, he doubtless was, the boys were set to protect and they always obeyed orders.
The 5th of January beheld the return of Colonel Davis to the Regiment, the command of the brigade devolving on Col. A. B. Jewett, of the Tenth Vermont, who after all these weeks had discovered that his commission antedated that of our Colonel just one day and there were people so uncharitable as to intimate that he had had the document redated just for this special purpose. Though there may have been those who did not altogether love Colonel Davis, because of his excessive devotion to drill, and the rigors of a soldier's life, all were as one in their admiration of his military bearing and his fitness for the head of the brigade, while his successor was notably lacking in all such characteristics. The Colonel made his first reappearance at dress parade and was greeted with a round of hearty cheers. In the evening he was honored by the Regiment's gathering round his quarters, accompanied by the band of the Fourteenth New Hampshire. The serenade prompted the officer to make a very happy speech, thanking everybody for progress in the past and urging a continuance in the same commendable direction. That the head of the Regiment was deeply interested in the welfare of his command was evident to every man.
The month was not entirely devoid of interest and the sham-battle between the battery and a portion of Scott's Nine Hundred (Eleventh New York Cavalry), on the 6th, roused the admiration of all onlookers to a high pitch; the rapid firing of the guns and the shouts of the charging cavalry gave the boys a notion of what the real thing must be, an impression rendered all the more vivid by the accidental wounding of several of the combatants, through premature discharges and too close proximity of certain ones. The endless round of all sorts of drill was rendered less irksome by the remembrance of those at home who were constantly sending choice bits of food for the delectation of their dear ones in the field and, to crown all, on the 17th, came seventeen barrels of apples for the Woburn company, right from the town that had first produced the famous Baldwin apple, and the generosity of the "K" boys was unstinted in distributing their pomological treasures among their less fortunate friends. Sunday, the 18th, some three hundred or more of the men repaired to the Presbyterian Church for religious service, expecting to hear the Chaplain, but in his stead, Private Batcheller, one of the older members of Company B, preached, a fact well illustrating the diversity of talent among American soldiers.