During our stay of about five months in Georgetown we had become well acquainted with every nook and corner of it and got along well with such of the citizens as were not Southern sympathizers. At some of the houses to which we had been invited we played games with the girls. At one house in particular where a few friends and I called for a while I flattered myself that I was the daughter's favorite visitor; but, alas! "fair and false was she!" for she placed her young affections on a drummer of the band whose more gaudy uniform seemed irresistible to her.
About the end of January, 1862, my company was ordered to leave Forrest Hall and occupy a vacant two-story and attic house on Pennsylvania Avenue between Eighteenth and Nineteenth Streets, facing a small triangular shaped park. This house is still standing (1913) and is now numbered 1806. We lived there as we did in the K Street house. Our duties were much easier than in Georgetown; the only guard duty we had was one post in front of our own quarters. We picked up a few recruits in Washington and I had to drill them sometimes in the little park, to my chagrin and much to the amusement of the spectators, as one of them named Davis was as awkward a man as I ever tried to instruct.
Since the battle of Bull Run, the preceding July, the Army of the Potomac had been assiduous in drill and had gained much in discipline under that admirable organizer, General McClellan, all except the volunteer cavalry regiments. Many of the men could not ride horses when they were enlisted. The horses were untrained and were as green as their riders. In a few slight skirmishes with the enemy on reconnaissances the horses ran away at the first fire, in spite of the efforts of the troopers to make a stand. It was a standing joke in the army at that time that there was a reward of five dollars for any soldier who had seen a dead cavalryman. It takes a long time to drill cavalrymen and horses. It was not until after the second year of the war that they became really effective and after that they did splendid service.
The Northern papers were clamorous for the Army of the Potomac to make a move on the enemy. "Why doesn't the army move?" was the cry. In the West there had been some success; General U.S. Grant had captured Fort Donaldson, Tennessee, together with Generals Buckner and Tilghman and thirteen thousand prisoners. President Lincoln, impatient at General McClellan's delay and unwilling to agree to the General's plan of a campaign, appointed February twenty-second as the day for a general movement of all the land and naval forces; but nothing was done. We observed the day by hanging out a flag and by burning a lot of candles in the front windows of our quarters at night. We were tired of garrison duty and wanted to see some field service. Up to this time the small regular army had had but little representation in any of the conflicts and no share in what little glory there had been. All seemed eager for real service, even the man in my company who used to declare that he "enlisted to fight but was not quarrelsome."
We knew that a campaign of some sort would soon take place and began to prepare for it. All of our fancy uniforms and articles of no service in the field were packed into cases, turned over to the quartermaster's department and placed in storage in the then unfinished Corcoran Art Gallery, situated on Pennsylvania Avenue near our quarters, and none of us ever saw them again. Shelter tents were issued to us. They were an imitation of the "tent d'Abri" used in the French army and consisted of a piece of thin canvas supposed to be rain-proof. It was about six and a half by five feet and had buttons and buttonholes along the edges, so that two or more pieces could be joined together and stretched across a ridge pole supported on two posts, and the sides fastened to tent-pins driven into the ground. This formed a small A-shaped tent, a "pup-tent," as the soldiers called it, but was open at the front and back. Generally three men got together and used the third piece of canvas to cover one of the open ends—the one to windward. The little tents were so low it was necessary to crawl into them on hands and knees and we could barely retain a sitting posture. Tent and ridge-poles of light wood, made to telescope in convenient lengths, and small hardwood tent-pins were also issued to us. All this had to be strapped to our knapsack and increased the load to be carried on our back very considerably. The poles and pins we threw away after a few days' trial in the field and trusted to chance to pick up forked sticks and ridge-poles in the woods. For this purpose I provided myself with a small hatchet, and to even up loads my bunkie carried a frying pan for our use.
On March eighth Centreville was discovered to have been evacuated by the Rebels. Painted logs (Quaker guns) were found mounted in the enemies' earthworks. Manassas was also found to be evacuated; at last the Army of the Potomac was forced to move. General McClellan was relieved from the supreme command of the United States Army and appointed to command the Army of the Potomac. We received orders to cross the Potomac into Virginia. The six companies, headed by the band, formed on Pennsylvania Avenue in the forenoon of the tenth of March and marched to the "Long Bridge" by way of Fourteenth Street, after more than seven months in Washington and Georgetown. The day was clear but cold. It was my hard luck to be corporal of the guard bringing up the rear of the column with a few prisoners and some drunks who had been unable to resist the temptation of a final debauch. I had some trouble to keep them from frolicking with the negro wenches who had lined up on the sidewalks in large numbers to hear the band play and see us marching off. The captain, much to our satisfaction, did not accompany us. He managed to get a medical certificate excusing him from field service and remained in Georgetown on easy duty.
PART IX.
The Peninsula Campaign, 1862.
Our real war experience commenced when we passed over the Long Bridge at Washington into the enemy's country—Virginia. It is not my intention to write a complete story of any part of the Civil War, nor to criticize the general conduct of the war, but simply to describe my personal experience and my observations, together with the impressions made upon me and my comrades at the time. A soldier in the ranks sees but little of a battle and, outside of his own regiment or brigade, knows less of events that have taken place or new movements to be made than a civilian can learn from the newspapers. We often read articles about the Army of the Potomac in papers several days old which contained information that was news to us.
After passing the bridge we marched along the Fairfax Court House road for a distance of about six miles, when we were ordered to halt and go into camp beside the road at the edge of a piece of woods. Our heavily loaded knapsacks began to be a burden on this short march and next morning we threw away things we thought we could dispense with. On the frontiers we had wagons to carry our tents, rations and knapsacks, which made marching easier, although we marched greater distances than a large army could. All through the Civil War the soldier in the ranks furnished his own transportation. In this camp we put up our little shelter tents for the first time, but as I was on camp guard and had to relieve sentinels every two hours, I sat on a log by a fire all night and dozed between times.
Next morning we broke camp and counter-marched to within about a mile of the town of Alexandria, where we went into camp on some high ground, carefully putting up our tents along lines forming company streets, as we expected to stay for some time. My bunkie and I gathered some pine-needle brush in the woods and spread it over the floor of our tent, as the ground was frozen and damp. The nights were still cold. We cooked our rations at fires which we built in the company streets and gathered around them evenings until tattoo. Nearly every soldier soon had the back of his blue trousers scorched a deep brown above the heels of his shoes from standing too close to the fire. There were encampments of troops all around us. The greater part of the Army of the Potomac was in the vicinity of Alexandria awaiting transportation to Fortress Monroe, Virginia. A fleet of boats was soon gathered from New York and Philadelphia to transport the army; they were of all kinds—tug-boats, towing-barges, New York ferryboats, excursion steamers and coast liners. Daily shipments were made, but our corps, General Fitz-John Porter's Fifth Army Corps, was held in camp until near the last.