SHADED SHELTERS.
When cold weather came on, the soldiers built the stockades to which I have already referred. The walls of these structures were raised from two to five feet, according to the taste or working inclination of the intended occupants. Oftentimes an excavation was made one or two feet deep. When such was the case, the walls were not built so high. Such a hut was warmer than one built entirely above ground. The size depended upon the number of the proposed mess. If the hut was to be occupied by two, it was built nearly square, and covered by two half-shelters. Such a stockade would and often did accommodate three men, the third using his half-shelter to stop up one gable. When four men occupied a stockade, it was built accordingly, and covered by four half-shelters. In each case these were stretched over a framework of light rafters raised on the walls of the stockade. Sometimes the gables were built up to the ridge-poles with smaller logs, but just as often they were filled by an extra half-shelter, a rubber blanket, or an old poncho. An army poncho, I may here say, is specified as made of unbleached muslin coated with vulcanized India-rubber, sixty inches wide and seventy-one inches long, having an opening in the centre lengthwise of the poncho, through which the head passes, with a lap three inches wide and sixteen inches long. This garment is derived from the woollen poncho worn by the Spanish-Americans, but is of different proportions, these being four feet by seven. The army poncho was used in lieu of the gum blanket.
A PONCHO ON.
The chinks between the logs were filled with mud, worked to a viscous consistency, which adhered more or less tenaciously according to the amount of clay in the mixture. It usually needed renewing after a severe storm. The chimney was built outside, after the southern fashion. It stood sometimes at the end and sometimes in the middle of one side of the stockade. It started from a fire-place which was fashioned with more or less skill, according to the taste or mechanical genius of the workman, or the tools and materials used, or both. In my own company there were two masons who had opportunities, whenever a winter camp was pitched, to practise their trade far more than they were inclined to do. The fire-places were built of brick, of stone, or of wood. If there was a deserted house in the neighborhood of the camp which boasted brick chimneys, they were sure to be brought low to serve the Union cause in the manner indicated, unless the house was used by some general officer as headquarters. When built of wood, the chimneys were lined with a very thick coating of mud. They were generally continued above the fireplace with split wood built cob-fashion, which was filled between and lined with the red clayey soil of Virginia, but stones were used when abundant.
Very frequently pork and beef barrels were secured to serve this purpose, being put one above another, and now and then a lively hurrah would run through the camp when one of these was discovered on fire. It is hardly necessary to remark that not all these chimneys were monuments of success. Too often the draught was down instead of up, and the inside of some stockades resembled smoke-houses. Still, it was “all in the three years,” as the boys used to say. It was all the same to the average soldier, who rarely saw fit to tear down and build anew more scientifically. The smoke of his camp-fires in warm weather was an excellent preparative for the smoking fireplace of winter-quarters.
Many of these huts were deemed incomplete until a sign appeared over the door. Here and there some one would make an attempt at having a door-plate of wood suitably inscribed; but the more common sight was a sign over the entrance bearing such inscriptions, rudely cut or marked with charcoal, as: “Parker House,” “Hole in the Wall,” “Mose Pearson’s,” “Astor House,” “Willard’s Hotel,” “Five Points,” and other titles equally absurd, expressing in this ridiculous way the vagaries of the inmates.
A CHIMNEY ON FIRE.