CXLII
Williamsburg, Va., April 20, 1864.
SINCE my last letter we have made our first hitch up the Peninsula, and are now about two miles from Williamsburg and one mile from the spot where, two years ago the 5th of May, we had the little scrimmage known as the battle of Williamsburg. We got our orders to march last Friday afternoon, started about sunset, and marched until one o’clock, when we arrived at our present location. Now, who do you suppose I saw last Friday? None other than our old friend Frank Morrill. I was just out of camp at Yorktown, heading for town so as to get my mail off before we started up here, when I heard my name shouted, and turning around, saw some one galloping toward me. And who should it be but Frank! The Third Regiment has not come up yet, and it is not definitely known that they will come, but Frank is signal officer on Gen. Terry’s staff and so came up with the General. [I never saw him again. He was mortally wounded, before Petersburg, in July.]
I have to go clear to Yorktown, now, for my mail. I leave here about one in the afternoon and get back about sunset. For a horse they have given me a great, stout, rawboned “buckskin,” a hard-rider, and the immediate physical effects on a fellow as soft and out of practice as I am have been slightly disastrous. The first day I wore out the seat of my pants, and it didn’t stop wearing when it got through the cloth. As I have to make the trip every day, I am having a pretty tough time getting acclimated, as it were.
Everything here indicates that we will soon be on the move. Orders were issued, day before yesterday, limiting the personal baggage of officers below the rank of brigadier-general to one small valise—to become operative in five days. There are to be only two wagons for each regiment, one of these exclusively for the hospital department. We may not move, though, for a fortnight. Whether or not we are to be discharged before the 4th of June is the main subject of discussion now. If we are not, we may, and probably will, have a chance to see “the dirty Chickahominy” again, and possibly the city of Richmond. When we old fellows are discharged, the Second Regiment is likely to be still further reduced in numbers by transfers to the navy, as permitted by recent orders. Now that I am counting my time by days, I am not troubling myself about how large or how small the regiment may be.
CXLIII
Williamsburg, Va., May 4, 1864.
THIS letter may be the last I will write you from the army, as there is a prospect of our being discharged on the 9th of May. Our “final statements” were made out yesterday and forwarded to headquarters. But they may decide at headquarters that our time is not up until June. In that event we will have a chance to march a piece in this “On to Richmond” movement. A big pier is being built on the James River, about three miles from here, indicating that we are to take boats there for some point—perhaps to go up the river as far as Fort Darling and attempt to take it as a preliminary to the capture of Richmond.