The hours of grief which this herculean task of stockading entailed upon the three unfortunates sheltered by our canvass, will not soon be forgotten. Our first sorrow was, finding on our return from up country, that our upright posts, the corner stones of our foundation, selected with the greatest care and discrimination, indeed, perfect gems in their way, and sawed off into proper lengths with much labor and a dull saw, were missing, actually gone. An undeniable judgment upon us for having found them on Sunday. This was, however, but the beginning of our sorrows. After many journeys back and forth between our tent and the old camps, sufficient materials were again collected on which to commence operations.
With careful measurement and seeming accuracy, the places for the uprights were marked and the holes dug. It is due to the soil of North Carolina to say that if there was one easy thing about stockading it was this same digging holes. It reminded us of our younger days, when the sand-heaps which lay before unfinished houses were the undisputed territory of the children of the neighborhood, and castles, caves, bridges and tunnels grew under the busy hands of the young builders. Our camp was located on a sandy plain, no doubt made expressly for digging holes, whether for posts or earthworks, it mattered not.
Having erected the posts, we next proceeded to make the walls of our house. First, the sutler had no nails, and we had to wait half a day for those. The company boasts two saws and three hatchets; you spend five minutes in going up and down the street in a vain attempt to borrow either the one or the other; they are all in use; you wait in idleness for ten minutes and try again. There is no need of wasting breath in making known your errand,—the unhappy owners of the coveted articles are visited on the average by some eight or ten applicants in as many minutes,—a look is sufficient.
At last you espy a saw lying idle, and immediately pounce on it and rush to your tent. Three sticks are sawed, and you are just getting your hand in when you are confronted by the injured man who indignantly demands his property, which you are constrained with a bad grace to deliver. The same scene is enacted with the hammer; and having spent as much time as a contractor would ask to build a house, the sides are at last completed and placed in position. The fact is undeniable,—they look very rough and unworkmanlike; however, we put the best foot forward, and the worst looking side at the back, where we flatter ourselves it will not be seen.
At length the frame is ready to receive the roof, and in an agony of doubts and fears, after some effort, we raise the tent to its place, and—find that our frame is too large for the tent, or, rather, the tent is too small for the frame; at all events, it is no go. However, by dint of pulling and twisting and sawing, we drag the refractory edges together, and with our tent-poles at an angle of forty-five degrees, and presenting a most unstable appearance, we enter our new abode in triumph. We have stockaded.
The old camp life of drill and guard was re-enacted here, with an additional task, by way of variety, entitled fatigue-duty, which was neither more nor less, than spending the day in the trenches, with a spade for a companion, an occupation on a hot summer's day the reverse of delightful. Battalion drills and company drills followed each other in quick succession, but as the one was early in the morning, and the other late in the afternoon, we had a good portion of the day to ourselves, and many were the shifts to fill up the long interval.
The customary occupation in the morning, when the weather permitted, was a swim in the Neuse. After morning drill, it was usually the way to go to guard-mounting and hear the band play. Then it was time to bathe, for we were obliged by orders to go in at ten, or thereabouts, and only once a day, but this increased the sport by bringing a good many into the water at the same time. Our road to the river lay directly past the regimental hospital, most beautifully situated in a grove of magnificent mulberry trees, as large as English elms, and so thick-leaved as to make a perfect shade tree. The hospital tent was pitched under one of them, the farm-house of the plantation being also occupied for a hospital; and near by was the quartermaster's building, while within a stone's throw stood Fort Spinola.
The fort was built directly on the river-bank, and commanded, with its black-mouthed cannon, both the river and the surrounding country for more than a mile in every direction. On our arrival at Camp Massachusetts, the fort was garrisoned by Co. G, of our regiment, who, having practiced heavy artillery drill at Fort Macon, were summoned to its defence in the early part of April, when an attack on the city was apprehended. Soon after our advent, Co. I returned from Fort Macon and took the place of Co. G at Fort Spinola, so that, after an interval of six months, the whole regiment was once more united under one command.
Just by the fort there was a long wharf, running into deep water, for the slope of the river-bed is very gradual, and this wharf was, so to speak, the headquarters of the bathers. Here were unlimited opportunities for swimming, diving, etc., while those who preferred shallower water had the whole river-bank to wade from. One of the men actually swam across the river one day, without making known his purpose. He not only reached the opposite side, but had started on his way back when he was picked up by a boat which was sent after him. As the river is fully two miles wide at this point, it was, to say the least, quite a swim.