Hardtack and coffee

by John Davis Billings

I think the greatest cross they bore consisted in being compelled to settle down in home camp, as some regiments did for months, waiting to be sent off. Here they were in sight of home in many cases, yet outside of its comforts to a large extent; soldiers, yet out of danger; bidding their friends a tender adieu to-day, because they are to leave them—perhaps forever—to-morrow. But the morrow comes, and finds them still in camp. Yes, there were soldiers who bade their friends a long good-by in the morning, and started for camp expecting that very noon or afternoon to leave for the tented field, but who at night returned again to spend a few hours more at the homestead, as the departure of the regiment had been unexpectedly deferred.

The soldiers underwent a great deal of wear and tear from false alarms of this kind, owing to various reasons. Sometimes the regiment failed to depart because it was not full; sometimes it was awaiting its field officers; sometimes complete equipments were not to be had; sometimes it was delayed to join an expedition not yet ready; and thus, in one way or other, the men and their friends were kept long on the tiptoe of expectation. Whenever a rumor became prevalent that the regiment was surely going to leave on a certain day near at hand, straightway there was an exodus from camp for home, some obtaining a furlough, but more going without one, to take another touching leave all around, for the dozenth time perhaps. Many of those who lived too far away to be sure of returning in time, remained in camp, and telegraphed friends to meet them at some large centre, as they passed through on the specified day, which of course the friends faithfully tried to do, and succeeded if the regiment set forth as rumored.

I said that many soldiers went home without furloughs. There was a camp guard hemming in every rendezvous for troops, with which I was familiar; but no sentinel could see a man cross his beat if he did not look at him, and this few of them did. Indeed, many of the sentinels themselves, as soon as they were posted and the relieving squad were out of sight, stuck their inverted muskets into the ground and decamped, either for their two hours or for the day, and took their chances of being brought to answer for it. The fact is, the men of ’61 and ’62 wanted to go to war, and, whether they left the camp with or without leave, they were sure to return to it. This fact was quite generally understood by their superiors.

This home camp life seems interesting to look back upon. Hundreds of men did not spend one day in six in camp. They came often enough to have it known that they had not deserted, and then flitted again, but other hundreds conscientiously remained. The company streets on every pleasant day were radiant with the costumes of “fair women, and brave men”—to be. On such a day a young man sauntering along the parade, or winding in and out of the various company streets, the willing prisoner of one or more interesting young women—his sisters, perhaps, or somebody else’s—walked, the envy of the men who had no such friends to enliven their camp life, or whose friends were too far away to visit them. If these latter men secured an introduction to such a party, it tempered their loneliness somewhat. And if such a party entered a tent, and joined in the social round, it made a merry gathering while they tarried. But there were other promenaders whose passing aroused no emotions of envy. The husband and father attended by the loving wife and mother, whose brow had already begun to wear that sober aspect arising from a forecasting of the future, seeing, possibly, in the contingencies of war, herself a widow, her children fatherless—dependent on her own unaided hands for all of this world’s comforts, which must be provided for the helplessness of childhood and youth. The husband, too, leading his boy or girl by the hand as he walks, is not unmindful of the risks he has assumed or the comforts he must sacrifice. But his hand is on the plough, and he will not turn back.

Another interesting party often to be seen in the company street comprised a father, mother, and son, perhaps an only boy, who had volunteered for the war. Their reluctance at the step which he had taken was manifested by turns in their looks, words, and acts. But while he remained in the State, they must be with him as much as possible. See that carpet-bag which the mother opens, as they take a seat on the straw in the son’s tent! Notice the solicitude which she betrays as she takes out one comfort or convenience after another—the socks for cold weather, the woollens to ward off fever and ague, the medicine to antidote foul water, the little roll of bandages which—may he never have occasion for; the dozen other comforts that he ought to be provided with, including some goodies which he had better take along if the regiment should chance to go in a day or two. And so she loads him up—God bless her!—utterly unmindful that the government has already provided him with more than he can carry very far with his unaided strength.

Then, the camps were full of pedlers of “Yankee notions,” which soldiers were supposed to stand in need of. I shall refer to some of these in another connection.

The lesson of submission to higher military authority was a hard one for free, honest American citizens to learn, and, while learning it, they chafed tremendously. It was difficult for them to realize the difference between men with shoulder-straps and without them; in fact, they would not realize it for a long time. When the straps crowned the shoulders of social inferiors, submission to such authority was at times degrading indeed. I have already touched upon this subject. But the most judicious code of military discipline, even if administered by an accomplished officer of estimable character, would have met with vigorous opposition, for a time, from these impetuous and hitherto untrammelled American citizens. Fortunately for them, perhaps, but unfortunately for the service, the line officers were men of their own selection, their neighbors and friends, who had met them as equals on all occasions. But now, if such an officer attempted to enforce the authority conferred by his rank, in the interest of better drill or discipline, he was at once charged by his late equals with “showing off his authority,” “putting on airs,” “feeling above his fellows”; and letters written home advertised him as a “miniature tyrant,” etc., which made his position a very uncomfortable one to hold for a time. But this condition of affairs wore away soon after troops left the State, when the necessity for rigid discipline became apparent to every man. And when the private soldier saw that his captain was held responsible by the colonel for uncleanly quarters or arms, or unsoldierly and ill disciplined men, the colonel in turn being held to accountability by his next superior, the growls grew less frequent or were aimed at the government rather than the captain, and the growlers began to settle down and accept the inevitable, taking lessons in something new every day.

DRAFTED.

It will be readily seen, I think, that the men composing the earliest regiments and batteries had also their trials to endure, and they were many; for not only they but their superiors were learning by rough experience the art of war. They were, in a sense, “achieving greatness,” while the recruits had “greatness thrust upon them,” often at short notice. Furthermore, recruits from the latter part of 1862 forward went out with a knowledge of much which they must undergo in the line of hardship and privation, which the first rallies had to learn by actual experience. And while it may be said that it took more courage for men to go with the stern facts of actual war confronting them than when its realities were unknown to them, yet it is also true that many of these later enlistments were made under the advantage of pecuniary and other inducements, without which many would not have been made. For patriotism unstimulated by hope of reward saw high-water mark in 1861, and rapidly receded in succeeding years, so that whereas men enlisted in 1861 and early in ’62 because they wanted to go, and without hope of reward, later in ’62 towns and individuals began to offer bounties to stimulate lagging enlistments, varying in amount from $10 to $300; and increased in ’63 and ’64 until, by the addition of State bounties, a recruit, enlisting for a year, received in the fall of ’64 from $700 to $1000 in some instances. It was this large bounty which led old veterans to haze recruits in many ways. Of course, there was no justification for their doing it, only as the recruits in some instances provoked it.