The Story of the Thirty-second Regiment, Massachusetts Infantry / Whence it came; where it went; what it saw, and what it did

by Francis J. Parker

This uneventful life, aided no doubt by prevalent but not serious bilious disorders, developed in our Regiment a general tendency to homesickness and “hypo.” To counteract it several attempts were made to initiate games and athletic exercises among the men, and the officers were requested to set an example to the men by organizing amusements among themselves—but it amounted to nothing, it seemed impossible to induce the men to amuse themselves.

We kept no very careful note of time. One day was pretty much like every other. Sundays were noticeable only for the absence of drills and a little more stupidity. To go home was the height of anybody’s ambition.

Private Callahan, of K Company, sought to be discharged for disability—the disability was beyond question, for he was born with it, and he was told by the Surgeon that he ought not to have accepted the bounty for enlistment; that he “ought to be hung” for doing it, to which somewhat severe criticism the soldier retorted that he “would die first.” It may not be necessary to state that Callahan was Irish. At Fredericksburg he lost a finger and obtained his coveted discharge.

We were so long here that, as the season advanced, we began to construct defences against the weather, and the acting adjutant even dreamed of a log hut, with a real door and real hinges. The only artificer at his command was his negro servant, a man who could admire but could not comprehend long dictionary words. The Adjutant, directing the negro as to the construction of the door frame, told him certain parts were to be perpendicular, others horizontal, and others parallel; but the black man’s face showed no evidence of comprehension, until after a dozen different forms of the same instruction had been resorted to and the master’s patience was exhausted, the idea penetrated the darkened mind of the servant, who turned upon the officer with the pertinent remark, “Why, massa, what you wants is ter have it true, ain’t it?”

New orders of architecture were rapidly developed, and the manufacture of furniture became an extensive occupation. It was quite wonderful what results could be obtained in both of these industries by the use of barrels and hard-bread boxes. Of the barrels we made chimneys and chairs; and of the boxes, tables, washstands, cupboards, and the walls and clapboards of our dwellings.

We were really getting to be very comfortable in the latter days of October, 1862, when the orders began to intimate that we would not live always in that neighborhood. First, our Company C was detached for a guard to the reserve artillery, where it served for ten months. Then, on the 30th, the whole army drew out like a great serpent, and moved away down the Potomac to Harper’s Ferry, crossing the river there, then up on the Virginia side, and along the foot hills of the Blue Ridge.

It was lively times again, and the march was rapid—often forced; but the weather was cool and bracing, and the men were glad of the change. From the 2d to the 15th of November we were on the eastern slopes of the Ridge, and Lee’s army in its western valley, racing each for the advantage over the other.

At each gap there was a lively fight for the control of the pass, but we were always ahead, and possession is as many points in war as it is in law. Holding these passes, our movements could be, to a considerable extent, masked from the observation of the enemy, while his were known to our General, whose object was to keep the army of the enemy strung out to the greatest possible length, and at a favorable moment to pounce upon its centre, divide and conquer it.

With the sound of guns almost always in our ears, we raced away through Snickersville, Middlebury, White Plains, and New Baltimore to Warrenton, with little to eat and plenty of exercise. Near White Plains, on the 8th, we marched all day in a snow-storm, and at night, splashed and chilled, bivouacked in a sprout field, making ourselves as comfortable as might be on three or four inches of snow.

Throughout this march the orders were very stringent against straggling and marauding. No allowance was made for transportation of regimental rations except the haversacks of the soldiers, and on the march in cold weather it is a poor (or good) soldier that does not eat three days’ rations in two. Our changes of base left us often very short of supplies, and it was not in the most amiable mood that we came to our nightly camp.