Shoulder-Straps: A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862

by Henry Morford

The visitors from the city, who, having no other connection whatever with the progress of this story, may be fobbed off with the very ordinary names of Smith and Brown,—reached the camp at about four o'clock on that Sunday afternoon, having waited until that late hour in the day for the purpose of avoiding the noon-tide heat, and being anxious to be present at the evening drill, which was supposed to take place in the neighborhood of six o'clock. An acquaintance of theirs, an officer in the Two Hundredth, one Lieutenant Woodruff, had several times invited them to "run down to camp and see him before he went away," promising to do the honors of the encampment in the best manner compatible with the duties of a "fellow busy all the time, you know."

Alighting from the vehicle, Smith and Brown found the camp stretching before them, scarcely so picturesque as they had anticipated, but with enough of the military air about its green sod and conical tents, to make it rather varied and pleasing to a couple of "cits" who had not looked upon the extended army pageant around Washington, or seen anything more of war than could be observed in a turn-out of the First Division on the Fourth of July. On a broad level, stretching back for a quarter of a mile from the railroad-track, and terminating in a strip of noble oak woods, the tents of the encampment were pitched, forty or fifty in number, not too white and cleanly-looking, even at a distance, and decidedly dingy and yellow when brought to a nearer view. Some attempt had been made at forming them into lines, with regular alleys between; the hospital-tent at some distance in the rear, distinguished by a yellow flag hanging listlessly from a pole in front; and the Colonel's large round tent or marquee prominent in the centre, a small American flag before it, doing its best to wave in the slight sea air that came in over the Long Island hills. Groups of soldiers, variously disposed, dotted the space between the tents or sat at the doors, chatting with male or female civilians, or their own wives and daughters, who had run down to see them as an amusement for Sunday afternoon; while sentinels paced backward and forward along certain lines and offered an uncertain amount of inconvenience to those who wished to traverse the camp-grounds in one direction or another.

Smith and Brown, looking for Woodruff and finding it a matter of some difficulty to discover him, paced up and down among the tents, wherever the sentinels permitted, looking in at the doors of those canvas cottages and observing the humors which denoted that the occupants had been the possessors of plenty of time for other purposes than drill, however proficient they might have become in that military necessity. Scarcely one of the alleys between the rows of tents but had its street-name, stuck up on a piece of chalked or charcoaled board at the entrance—from the ambitious "Broadway" to the aristocratic "Fifth Avenue" and the doubtful "Mercer Street." Many of the tents bore equally significant inscription, from the "City Hall" (where some scion of an alderman probably made his warlike abode), to the "Astor House" and "St. Nicholas" (where perhaps some depreciated son of snobbery was known to have his quarters), and the "Hotel de Coffee and Cakes," suggestive of inmates from the less pretentious precincts of the city. Within the tents, as Smith and Brown took the liberty of looking in, a variety of spectacles were discovered. Straw seemed to be an almost universal commodity—quite as indispensable there as in pigpens or railroad-cars; and next to straw, perhaps battered trunks and very cheap pine tables predominated. Greasy kettles and dishes could be discovered just under the flap of the tent, in many instances; and here and there a tent would be passed, emitting odors of rancid grease, stale tobacco and personal foulness, not at all appetizing to visitors unfamiliar with the gutters of Mackerelville or the hold of a ship in the horse-latitudes.

In some of the tents the men were asleep on the tables, in others on the trunks, in still others on the straw. In a few Smith and Brown saw soldiers drinking; in others, in positions suggestive of being very drunk, had they found them elsewhere than in a well-regulated camp; in still others playing cards for pennies, furtively behind the flaps of the tent or openly in the vicinity of the door. They caught fragments of broad oaths from a few, and snatches of obscene stories from a few others; and taken altogether, the impression of the Two Hundredth being in a high state of discipline or a very excellent sanitary condition, was not strongly forced upon their minds. This impression was not strengthened, when, being directed by one of the sentries to the hospital-tent as a place where they might be likely at that moment to find Lieutenant Woodruff,—they failed to discover him there, but did not fail to discover one corporal keeping guard in that sanitary domicil, so drunk that he was asleep and so drunkenly abusive when they woke him that they were glad to permit him to fall back again into his beastly slumber.

At length they found Lieutenant Woodruff, who had just returned from escorting another party of friends to the cars, on their way back to town. He seemed glad to see them, though not enthusiastic in his demonstrations—invited them to the tent in which he messed with some brother officers—and they took that direction for a rest after their hot promenade.

Somewhat to the apparent mortification of Woodruff, when they reached the tent none of the brother officers to whom he had promised to introduce his friends, were to be found; but they had left their traces behind them. Two or three empty bottles and as many uncleaned glasses lay about the table, and the remains of spilt liquor wetted and stained the boards of the seats, while a very dirty pack of cards, half on the table and the remainder on the ground, showed that the officers were not only a little unscrupulous as to the character of their Sunday amusements, but equally indifferent as to the cleanliness of the tools with which they performed the arduous labors of old-sledge, euchre and division-loo. Woodruff cleared away the debris from the table, and flung it into one corner with some petulance which did not escape the notice of his visitors. Finally part of a box of bad cigars was introduced, and among the fumes engendered by those indispensable "weeds," a little conversation followed.

"Well, when do you get off?" asked Smith, who had been very anxious to come on that Sunday, instead of waiting for the next, under the impression that the regiment might move at any time and thus deprive them of the visit. He had been led to suppose so, partially from conversations with Woodruff in the city, and partially by the statements in the newspapers, before alluded to, made with reference to this and other "favorite regiments."

"Get off!" answered Woodruff, with no concealment of the vexation in his tone. "Humph! well, I think we shall need to get on a little faster, before we get off at all!"

"Not full yet, eh?" asked Brown.

"Not exactly," was the answer of the Lieutenant, with a satirical emphasis on the second word which indicated that some other would have been quite as well in place.