Diary of an Enlisted Man

by Lawrence Van Alstyne

May 27, 1864.

Friday. With a horse to ride and a company of men from a western regiment, I went out about one and a half miles to relieve a part of the picket line. Quite an army goes out every day, for the line about our present stopping-place is many miles in length. I had about half a mile, almost all the way through bushes and wet ground. An empty house near one end of the line was my headquarters, and from there I hobbled over the line every two hours, the line being too rough to ride. I was not called out once, everything being quiet along my line, and I heard no calls from those on either side of me. The officer of the day came round as often as he could ride the line, and at midnight the grand rounds came.

Sol and Gorton came out and brought me a supper and visited me until I had to go over the line. Orders were very strict at night to halt everything. An Irishman on one of the posts asked me if he should halt a pig if he came along, and I repeated the order to "halt everything." At midnight, when I went over the line with the grand rounds, there was fresh pork frying at that post, and as the orders were strictly against foraging I said to the man, "You paid for the pig, didn't you?" "Yes, sor," said he; "it's only the loikes of them Indiana fellers that'll steal." That almost made me yell, for the grand officer was colonel of an Indiana regiment that were noted foragers. He grinned at the joke on him, and with that one adventure we reached the end of the line, where I turned him over to the next and came back. I got a generous slice of the stolen pig for my breakfast.

May 28, 1864.

Saturday. The night wore away and at 9 A. M. the new guard came. After my line was relieved I marched them back to guard headquarters to discharge them. A new order, that no loaded guns be allowed in camp, had come out, and I took them to the river bank to fire off the guns. I noticed that the gun next to me did not go off and told the man of it. He tried it again and still it didn't go. I then pricked some powder in the tube and snapped it, and as it didn't go off I tried the ramrod to see if it was loaded. The gun was nearly half full of something, and upon taking it to the armorer, who took out the breach, found the first charge had the bullet end down. The man could not account for it, but probably in the excitement of the Yellow Bayou fight he had got rattled and kept loading every time he snapped the gun. It is said such things do happen in volley firing, but I never before saw anything of the kind. I was glad enough the first charge was wrong end up. There were six charges in the gun and something must have happened if the first charge had exploded.

I then returned to our camp and slept till night.

May 29, 1864.

Sunday. This was to be our pay day, and little else was thought of or talked about all the morning. A number of us were in Colonel Parker's tent when the adjutant congratulated me on getting full pay, with no reduction for the time I was absent without leave; that the rolls had been passed upon at headquarters and no reduction made. Colonel Parker said it could not be. The record had never been cleared, and if the paymaster was informed of the fact I wouldn't get any pay at all. After some talk, in which some took one view and some another, the matter was dropped and I thought no more about it until told by the paymaster, when I stepped up for my $415, that I could get no pay until an investigation was had and the rolls cleared. I was mad clear through, and I was terribly disappointed, too. I first found out that the colonel had done it and then went and gave him a piece of my mind. He laughed the matter off, but he was just as mad as I. I forgot about his being my superior, and I wonder he didn't put me under arrest. I certainly gave him plenty of excuse for doing it. I had no right to talk as I did, but I had plenty of reason, and I have not yet got to the point where I am sorry for doing it. I reminded him that although I was absent from my regiment for a few days without leave, I was on duty in another, and earning my pay, while he and the rest of them were loafing in camp at Lakeport. I can't imagine why Colonel Parker has so suddenly turned against me. So far as I know he has no reason for it, and if he knows of one, he is not man enough to tell. So I must live on borrowed money for another two months, and affairs at home must get along the best way they can. Maybe it all comes from his hobby, "The good of the service," which he so often quotes.

May 30, 1864.

Monday. I made an application for an investigation of my reasons for being absent without leave, and Colonel Parker endorsed and sent it to headquarters. The matter has blown over for the present. From all I can hear, the colonel is ashamed of the shabby trick he played me. If Colonel Bostwick had been here instead of at headquarters, I don't believe the thing would have been thought of. Colonel Parker is like some others I have seen. A little authority makes a fool of him.