While we were on Camp Stevens we had a great many visitors. Among those whom I shall ever remember was that “grand, square and upright” citizen of Pawtucket, Charley Chickering. It so happened that the day he visited us, I was performing guard duty around the camp. I noticed that my portly friend, as he paraded up and down the sidewalk opposite me, seemed deeply interested in my movements. Presently he came across the street and walked alongside of me awhile as I paced my beat back and forth. He was silent. So was I. But at length that ominous chuckle of his began to be heard, or perhaps I should say a series of chuckles, which all who are acquainted with him so well know always precedes his quaint and original utterances. I fancied that my martial air and my dexterity in handling my musket, although I knew it did bob around considerably when carried at “support,” or perpendicularly, was to evoke from my old friend and schoolmate a compliment. But judge of my surprise when instead he opened upon me as follows, his every word being punctuated with one of those peculiar chuckles to which I have referred: “Nickerson,—I—admire—your— patriotism,—but—I—swear—I—can’t—compliment—you—on—your— soldierly—bearing.”
I confess that I experienced considerable difficulty in learning to keep step, but, like the raw Irish recruit, I stoutly maintained that the trouble was with “the other b’ys; they wouldn’t kape step wid me.”
Chapter II.
It was on the afternoon of the sixth of October, 1862, when we kissed our wives and sweethearts, and
“With our guns upon our shoulders,
And our bayonets by our sides,”
left Camp Stevens for the seat of war. We were in anything but light marching order when we broke camp. To this day the remembrance of those back-breaking knapsacks makes me weary. Feminine ingenuity seemingly exhausted itself in conjuring up all sorts of things, describable and indescribable, that could make life a burden to a “raw recruit,” a wheelbarrow being needed for their transportation. But the size of those knapsacks grew “beautifully less” shortly after leaving home, a blanket and overcoat being all that were absolutely needed in active service, and often one of these proved a burden rather than a necessity. In addition to clothing enough to have overstocked one of the numerous Palestine merchants on Chatham street, in New York, there were, among other things, family Bibles, pocket Testaments, prayer-books and dictionaries, Pilgrim’s Progress, Old Farmer’s Almanac, photograph and autograph albums, ambrotypes and daguerreotypes, diaries, razors, mirrors of various sizes, boxes of blacking, button-hooks, collars and cuffs, corkscrews, tooth powder, brushes for the hair, teeth and boots, whisk brooms, clothing and hat brushes, combs, shaving utensils, slippers, clothes-wringers, frying-pans and patent coffee-pots, soap, towels, napkins, pins, needles and thread, buttons of various dimensions, boots and shoes, both thick and thin, hair oil and pomade, matches, pipes, tobacco, plug and fine cut, rolls of linen bandages and bundles of lint, Pain Killer, Jamaica ginger, Seidlitz powders, pills, cayenne pepper, and almost everything else but umbrellas. Then there were the equipments provided by the government,—haversack, canteen, cartridge box and sixty rounds of cartridges, not to mention the musket,—until our appearance resembled the pictures of the dromedaries crossing the Great Desert which I saw in the geography in my school days. When we embarked on the cars at Olneyville, bound for New York, and unslung those corpulent knapsacks, the sense of relief which we experienced was, I fancy, somewhat akin to that felt by Bunyan’s pilgrim when he dropped his burden. Indeed, it seemed like getting out from under a haystack or a mountain.
From New York to Washington our trip possessed no features uncommon to other regiments. From Philadelphia to the National Capital we were transported in freight cars, a new experience to all of us, but one to which we became accustomed before we saw Rhode Island again. It was at Perryville, Maryland, that we had our first glimpse of the devastation wrought by war. Here the extensive bridge across the Susquehanna had been burned by the enemy, and we were transferred in detachments across the river to Havre de Grace in a small steamer. We arrived in Washington about ten o’clock on one of the most beautiful moonlight nights I ever saw. Our arrival was expected by some of our friends who had enlisted earlier than ourselves, and they were at the railroad station to welcome us.
Immediately upon landing from the cars we were marched to the “Soldiers’ Retreat” for refreshments. No soldier who has frequented that place needs to be told that we beat a hasty retreat therefrom. I am very confident that the most of the men would gladly have taken the next train back to Rhode Island, if the matter of return tickets had not been entirely overlooked by the master of transportation.