CAMP LIFE ON THE SUSQUEHANNA.
In hastening thus to the rescue of our suddenly imperiled government, we gave ourselves to that government without reserve, except that our term of service should not be extended beyond the period of the present exigency. Ourselves stirred with unbounded enthusiasm as we fell into line with other armed defenders of the Fatherland, we expected to find the inhabitants of the menaced States, and especially the citizens of Harrisburg, all on fire with the zeal of patriotism. We expected to see the people everywhere mustering, organizing, arming; and the clans pouring down from every quarter to the Border. At Harrisburg a camp had indeed been established as a rendezvous, but no organized Pennsylvania regiments had reported there for duty. The residents of the capital itself appeared listless. Hundreds of strong men in the prime of life loitered in the public thoroughfares, and gaped at our passing columns as indifferently as if we had come as conquerors, to take possession of the city, they cravenly submitting to the yoke. Fort Washington, which we were sent to garrison, situated on what is known as Bridgeport Heights, we found in an unfinished state. In the half-dug trenches were—whom, think'st, reader? Thousands of the adult men of Harrisburg, with the rough implements of work in their hands, patriotically toiling to put into a condition of defence this the citadel of their capital? Nothing of the sort. Panic-stricken by the reported approach of the enemy, the poltroons of the city had closed their houses and stores, offered their stocks of merchandize for sale at ruinous prices, and were thinking of nothing in their abject fear except how to escape with their worthless lives and their property. In vain their patriotic Governor, and the Commander of the Department of the Susquehanna—his military head-quarters established there—sought to rally them to the defence of their capital. Hired laboring men were all we saw in the trenches! What a contrast to this the conduct of the Pittsburghers presents! They too had a city to defend—the city of their homes. The enemy threatened it, and they meant to defend it. Their shops were closed; their furnace and foundry fires, which like those watched by the Vestals had been burning from time immemorial, were put out; and the people poured from the city and covered the neighboring hills, armed with pick and shovel. "Fourteen thousand at work to-day on the defences," says the Pittsburg Gazette of the 18th June. Such a people stood in no need of bayonets from a neighboring State to protect them; while the apathy of the Harrisburghers only invited the inroads of an enterprising enemy.
And so the Twenty-Third was ordered into the trenches! This was so novel an experience to the men that they took to it pleasantly, and for two days did their work with a will. It must have been amusing, however, to an on-looker of muscle, in whose hands the pick or spade is a toy, to watch with what a brave vigor hands unused to toil seized and wielded the implements of the earth-heaver; and how after a dozen or two of strokes and the sweat began to drop, the blows of the pick grew daintier, and the spadefuls tossed aloft gradually and not slowly became spoonfuls rather. But we rallied one another and dashed the sweat away; and again the picks clove the stony masses damagingly, and the shovels rang, and the parapets grew with visible growth. Gangs of men relieved each other at short intervals; and in this way we digged through Saturday and Sunday.
On our arrival at the fort we found tents pitched ready to receive us, just vacated by the New York 8th, and 71st, before alluded to. But we were ordered to shift camp a day or two afterward and accordingly had the work of camp-making to do over. The site selected was a rather steep hillside, where the pitching of tents involves a good deal of digging. First, you must level off a rectangular plot some six feet by seven as a foundation for your structure. (This description refers to the "A" tent, ours being of that pattern.) Then you must set your tent-poles in such positions as that the tent, when pitched shall preserve nicely the rectilinearity of the street and its own equipoise. After that the canvas is stretched into proper position by means of pegs driven firmly into the ground on every side. Then follows carpentry work. Three or four joists, if you can procure them, are laid flat on the ground and half imbedded in the soft earth, and across these is fitted a board flooring. A pole is next adjusted close under the ridge-pole of the tent to accommodate a variety of furniture, whose shape or appendages suggest such disposition. And finally, a rack or framework is set up next the rear wall of the tent, for the support of the muskets of the mess.
Thus furnished, a tent has all the essential parts which belong to it in a well-ordered camp, according to the domiciliary fashions prevailing in the Twenty-Third Regiment. But beside these there are certain other constructions that seem to spring with the ease and grace of spontaneity from the hands of an ingenious and experienced contriver of a tent-home,—if so sacred a word may be used in so profane a connection. Not a little ingenuity is called into play in disposing advantageously about the tent the necessary personal paraphernalia of the soldier, not to mention the dozen little conveniences that incommode everybody, but which, nevertheless, silently accumulate by virtue of the volunteer's perpetual outreach after the shadow of his accustomed home comforts. Room must be found for four to six muskets, according to the number of the mess, and as many knapsacks, haversacks, belts, blankets, rubber-cloths, canteens, sets of dishes (!), boots or shoes, and a box to hold blacking and brushes, soap, candles, etc. Beside these, there is apt to be—unless the mess pass, as they ought to do, a prohibitory law on the subject—an assortment of towels, handkerchiefs, stockings and other articles of apparel which the owners thereof have lately washed, or have gone through the motions of washing, and have hung up overhead to dry, where they are forever flapping in your face when you stand upright in the tent. The blankets and knapsacks are at night used to eke out the appointments for sleep,—the first to soften the floor to the bones of the sleepers, the second to serve for pillows. These, especially the former, are looked upon by the genuine soldier as effeminate; while the greenhorn bitterly complains of them as a very satire on helps to sleep.
There are nooks in a tent, as there are in every builded house, that seem to be just the places for some little oddities of contrivance or other. But there is one appendage in particular which is quite apt to possess the mind of the greenhorn. He is early disgusted with the dirty, grovelling life of your easy-going, shiftless, contented old campaigner, and inwardly resolves to adopt a genteeler regimen. So he builds him a cellar for the cool deposit of wines, butter, milk, eggs, and whatever other delicacy his dainty stomach may require. In the tent flooring he cuts a trap door admitting to the sacred enclosure. You are reclining perhaps in your domicile opposite, dreamily coloring your meerschaum, and watching Mr. Greenhorn. As his work develops itself to your comprehension you wrinkle your face with mischievous merriment, wondering whether he does not see, as you do, that there is a laugh to come in there by and bye. The day passes and time wags merrily on. A day or two afterward, at a certain "fall in for rations!" you notice in your enterprising neighbor an unusual nervous restlessness and a disposition, now for the first time shown, of winking slily at you without provocation, and chucking you in the ribs. You know at once that there is something in the wind, and suspect that the aforesaid laugh is to come in pretty soon. Instinctively connecting his conduct with that cellar which so much amused you, you are curious enough to follow up the thread he has unwittingly slipped into your fingers. Accordingly when he returns to his tent with provender in hand you watch him closely. He lifts the trap door and draws out a crock of butter, enough to last the mess a fortnight. With this unctuous gold of the dairy he overspreads his tough hard tack and shares his happiness with his messmates. You slily give the alarm to the street, and in a minute there is poking in at the tent door and overhanging the festive party a struggling crowd of hands, each bearing in its fingers a hard tack, or fragment thereof, clamorous to be buttered. You return to your tent roaring with laughter, and subsequently observe that your dismayed neighbour is spared the trouble of returning the crock to the cellar! The same cruel fate awaits a crock of milk which he was lucky enough to get of the old woman under the hill, but so impolitic as to expose in broad daylight on the company parade. His wine—for it is evident there is something of the sort in reserve,—he resolves—so you infer,—to manage more astutely. Accordingly in the sly of the evening, the flaps of his tent closely drawn, though not so closely as to keep out a mischievous eye, the stump of a tallow candle shedding a forlorn, nebulous light on the assembled mess, he draws forth a bottle of fine old sherry. It is not long before sounds of merriment, of singing and shouting and laughter, betoken an unusual cause of excitement within that tent. There begins to be a movement among outsiders, and you proceed presently to make an investigation. You peep in; another joins you; then another; and soon there is a crowd. All make themselves at once quite at home, sitting down on the edge of the tent, on each other, on the ground, anywhere. The master of the feast is by this time overflowing with the milk—the wine rather—of human kindness. He feels no dismay now at the sight of his uninvited guests, but greets them with cordial and good humored welcome, not noticing in his mellow mood, as you do, coolly surveying matters, that another of the aforesaid laughs will come in presently. His self-love all a-glow with satisfaction, he offers you a "glass of wine," (in a tin cup). You take the bottle also, and pass it around. He makes absurd speeches at which he laughs with boisterous glee, and at which you laugh too, and all laugh. He sings absurd medleys for which you improvise absurd choruses which make things go along as pleasantly as possible. Meanwhile the bottle is returned empty. He takes it, insists upon re-filling your "glass" from it, and tips it up over your cup. Then with a comical leer at you at the idea of attempting to pour wine from an empty bottle, he turns, dives into his cellar and fishes up another. You bid him go on with that capital song, offering to save him the trouble of unsealing and dispensing the jolly red wine. All grow rapidly merry, and so flows with a like looseness the song and the solace, till both are exhausted; and as the hour of "taps" approaches you bid your duped and fuddled host good night. The crowd follows suit, and soon the five small strokes of the drum find the company street deserted, lights extinguished, and each tent tenanted by its own for the night, though there still lingers in the air a suppressed murmur of drowsy song and laughter. (Moral:—A knowing campaigner never builds him a wine cellar.)
To our tent city we gave the name of Camp Couch in honor of our aforetime fellow-citizen of Brooklyn, the distinguished Major-General commanding the department. In acknowledging this honor the General remarked that he "was not unmindful of the great service rendered by our regiment and the troops of New York in so promptly responding to the call of our commanders to assist in repelling the threatened invasion of Pennsylvania." The life of duty we led there is well outlined in the following programme for each day, published in General Orders:—
"4.50 a.m. Drummer's call.
5.00 a.m. Reveille:—when roll will be called by the First Sergeant, (superintended by a commissioned officer,) on the company parade,—the troops parading without arms. Captains will report absentees without leave, to the commanding officer.
5.30 a.m. Police call:—when the quarters will be policed, as also the grounds immediately around them.