Day before yesterday I managed to work about as much discomfort into twenty-four hours as ever fell to my lot. We were working on the road. It rained all day, and I was, of course, thoroughly soaked. And when we got back to camp there was no warm, dry nest to crawl into. Instead, the rain poured through the tent in streams, and there was no way to get away from it. It has taken me till now to get back to anything like normal conditions.
I saw two deserters from the rebels, who came in this morning. One of them was from Pennsylvania. He was pressed into the rebel service and took the first opportunity to desert.
My old tent-crew of Camp Beaufort is broken. It is no longer a matter of choice and selection. We are counted off in fours and tent in the same order we stand in the ranks. My present mates are Bill Ramsdell, Lyn Woods and Joe Gleason—all royal good fellows.
LI
Camp Winfield Scott,
Before Yorktown, Va., May 1, 1862.
PHYSICALLY I am pretty near used up. Night and day we are on duty in the trenches or on fatigue work, supporting batteries, throwing up earthworks, building roads, regardless of weather conditions. Last night we were digging on a parallel, or trench for infantry, the end of which was at the edge of the bluff overlooking the York river. It was all open ground between us and the rebel works, and, though very dark, the rebels kept the scene fairly well lighted up. Every two or three minutes there would be a flash way up there to the front, then a roar, another flash in the air down our way, and pieces of iron flying. The big guns, though, did not worry us much. It was practically impossible to land a shell in the trench from one of these guns. But they had one big mortar working that was quite another matter. Every time this was fired the burning fuse marked its course. Up, up, up it would climb, then hang for an instant and come sweeping down, down, down. It did not land one shell in our trench, although it put some uncomfortably close.
I managed to steal one little nap, but it didn’t last long. I got quite a comfortable seat at the end of the trench, overlooking the river. I have a recollection of watching the lights on vessels far down the river and in distant camps, and of listening to the lap of the waves on the beach below me. And I went to sleep. And I woke up—quick. I was trying to decide whether the rebels had sprung a mine or landed a shell in the trench, when it happened again, and I saw what the trouble was. Only a short distance below was the black mass of one of our gunboats, which had crawled up unusually close, and was firing her big shells right over our heads into the rebel works.