In this camp I was subjected to discipline by Col. Barlow. The evening before, on dress parade, I was named to take charge of a police detail from the Sixty-first, which was to report at brigade headquarters the next morning at five o’clock. I had slept but little during the night. Toward morning I fell into a drowse, and was awakened out of it by the reveille. I hurried out of my tent and was getting my detail together, hoping that the colonel would not notice my tardiness. I got to the place of rendezvous the first of any one in the brigade, and had to wait for an hour before a start was made. Our party worked through the forenoon, picking up all litter, looking after sinks, burying dead animals and doing whatever came in view to make our section of the country sanitary and look tidy. This performed we returned to our respective regiments. Having dismissed my detail, I was going to my tent when Sergeant Major Greig sang out, “Sergeant Fuller, the colonel says you may consider yourself under arrest, and you will confine yourself to your tent.” I knew of course the reason for this. I stayed within for a couple of days, and then wrote a statement of the case and got a drummer to take it to the colonel. It came right back with an endorsement that if I had any communication to make, it could be done through the regular channel. I then sent the paper to Lieut. Keech and he forwarded it to the colonel. In a few moments I received from him a line that I was relieved from arrest and could resume my duties. These disciplinary matters were needful to keep the men up to their duties, and the organization instructed, and in working order.
One evening Barlow took the regiment and started for the front. We passed our intrenchments, and, it was said, we marched in the direction of Malvern Hill. We advanced a number of miles, discovered no enemy and returned to camp before morning.
About the eighth of August signs appeared that a change was coming. The siege guns were withdrawn and shipped, as were the heavier camp equipage and extra baggage. Aug. 16th about noon we broke camp and moved out, we did not know where to, nor where for. It proved to be a march down the peninsula. The first day out we made but about four miles, and halted near a corn field. The corn was fit for roasting and the men had a feast. I suppose the strict rules of McClellan’s army, probably, were violated as there was some foraging done.
August 17th we made twelve miles, and passed Charles City Court House. Inexcusable vandalism was here committed. The books and records of the county seat were scattered about in profusion. Many documents two hundred years old were passed about, and there were those with Washington’s signature. We crossed the Chickahomony, I was told, near its junction with the James, on a pontoon bridge, I should think one-eighth of a mile in length. It was the longest stretch of bridge of the kind I ever saw.
The road we took on this march was not the one by which we went up, on our way to the Richmond we did not see until about three years after. The country does not vary much from prairie level. The soil is light, with no stone in it to speak of. In a dry time, with considerable travel it powders up so that in going through it the dust rises in almost solid columns. A good part of the Potomac army, horse, artillery, foot and baggage trains, had preceded us. This made the dust as deep as it could be. Much of the road was through forests. I well remember this march from the dust experience. It exceeded anything I ever heard of. We would march for long distances when a man could not see his file leader—the dust so filled the air as to prevent seeing. Of course, the men had to breath this air. The nostrils would become plugged with the dust so moistened as to make slugs. Every now and then the men would fire them out of their noses almost as forcibly as a boy snaps a marble from his fingers. I remember having serious forbodings that taking in such quantities of road dirt would cause lasting injury. I do not know that my apprehensions of evil from this cause were ever realized. I suppose the dust that got into the lungs worked out in some way.
Aug. 19th we passed through Williamsburg, the site of William’s and Mary’s College and the capital of the colony in the days when Patrick Henry told the House of Delegates that, “Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the third—might profit by their example.” At this time the place was very delapidated. As I remember there was but one good looking house. The place had been well fortified against our approach as we were going up in May.
Aug. 20th we reached Yorktown and went into camp on the same piece of ground we had used about three months before. Those three months had wrought great changes in our circumstances as a regiment and an army. “We had met the enemy” and he was Not ours. After stacking arms I wandered around and in so doing came across a quantity of split peas, which doubtless had been left by our army on the upward march. With others I concluded to try a change of diet and prepare a banquet for mastication that evening. I took enough of the peas to cook my quart cup full, and patiently sat by the camp fire through the evening looking after the cooking. It was quite late when they were boiled tender. I was hungry from the waiting, they touched the spot in the way of relishing, and, in a brief time the bottom of that old quart cup was bare. The prevailing complaint with the men was diarrhoea, and I was one of the prevalents, so to speak. This was not hygenic food for such a case, and, without further words, I was not very well the remainder of the night. The weather had been hot for that latitude. The next morning it was like the furnace of Nebuchadnezzar—several times hotter than it had been. I felt more like being petted by a nurse than to shoulder my traps and tramp. I could hardly stand, but to go was a necessity. We made that day a march of twenty miles, I think. Not being able to step out squarely, but rather drag and shuffle along, I began to chafe badly, which made the marching very painful. I kept up with the boys till towards the close of day and about a mile from where camp was made, when I grew dizzy. I saw all sorts of colors. I staggered out one side and went down like a bundle of old clothes. I lay there in semi-consciousness, until the rear guard came along, when I was accosted with the question, “What are you here for?” I said I couldn’t go another step. “Well, but you must. Come, get up, or we’ll prick you.” I made the effort under this pressure, and did work my way over that mile to where the regiment had stacked arms. This was the first and only time I ever failed to be present with the regiment when it stacked arms and I was with it.
On this occasion whiskey had been issued. The first time since it had been given us when stationed behind the breastworks at Fair Oaks. Some one of my friends had saved for me my ration and it was a big one. I should think there was nearly a tumbler full of it, and it was the rankest, rottenest whiskey I ever saw, smelled or tasted. My legs were raw and bloody from the chafing, and I was sick all over. I divided my whiskey into two equal parts, one half I used on the raw flesh, and it took hold like live coals. This done I nerved myself to drink the balance, and, by an effort, kept it down. I rolled up in my blanket, went to sleep, and so remained till roll call next morning. When I stirred I was somewhat sore and stiff, but was essentially well, and made that day’s march as easily as I ever did. During this day’s march we had one of the hardest showers I was ever out in. In a short time every rag on the men was drenched. Shortly after the sun came out and before halting the heat of the sun and bodies had dried everyone, and we felt as though we had been washed and ironed—thoroughly laundered. This day’s march brought us to Newport News, where shipping was at anchor to transport us somewhere.
We took a steamer which headed for the Potomac. During the time since we left Harrison’s Landing Lee had cut across the country and was making it warm for Gen. Pope in the Shenandoah. The army of the Potomac, in place of following in the rear of Lee, made its slow way down the peninsula, and then shipped up the Chesapeak and Potomac, unloading at Aquia Creek, Alexandria, etc.
On the 27th of August, at about two p. m., our steamer stopped at Aquia Creek landing. We went ashore and marched inland some five or six miles and went into camp. Here we heard artillery firing. No doubt from some one of the numerous conflicts Pope was then having.