Now I must tell you the story of Bill Ramsdell, for it is decidedly interesting, although rather rough on Bill. A short time after we came on from New Hampshire Bill went to Concord and reported to Major Whittlesey. Well, no sooner has he reported than he goes away again and is not seen about Concord for two or three days, when he again reports; but this time the major puts him under arrest as a deserter, and when the squad of deserters leave New Hampshire under a guard of convalescents Bill is packed off with the rest. They go to Boston and stop at Fort Warren for a time, and while there the prisoners are put to all sorts of menial work. Part of the time Bill was haying on the parapet, which was not at all bad, but after that he was given a mule’s job, hauling coal. A dozen of the prisoners would load a cart, hitch on and drag it along, dump their load, and so on. All this I learned from George Cilley, who was left in New Hampshire, sick, and who was guarding prisoners three or four weeks. He said Bill took it all very philosophically—he couldn’t help himself. He is now in Washington and will probably be sent to the regiment before long.
The guard duty is divided now so that we do it one week and the Twelfth the next. During our week every man is on guard every other day, but we are not overworked, as we have no drilling to do.
My tentmate, Dan. Desmond, is one of the quaintest old Irishmen you ever met. He loads me with his adventures and experiences until my ribs fairly ache from the laughing. Every night he regales me with some story—and a good one—to go to bed on.
The Seventeenth fellows will be discharged within a few days. Two in my company have died in the service—Tibbetts, killed at Gettysburg, and Ingalls, died of disease.
The laugh is on Steve Smiley, and it is too good to keep. The day we came down from Washington Steve ran down to some place on the street to get some papers—I don’t know just what. But he didn’t get them, because the colonel had been there before him. On his way back to the barracks—only a little ways—he ran into the provost guard, and as he had no pass they gathered him in and chucked him into the central guard house, where they kept him over night. The next morning they let him out and he got on a boat and came down. He is pretty touchy about it, and the boys like to thorn him about patronizing the “Central Hotel.”
The boys catch some nice fish here, among which are sea trout, which the natives tell us will be very plenty in a short time. There is a big kettle of beans on the fire, parboiling, which will be ready baked for breakfast. You see I have to keep bringing up grub matters; but it does seem good to have a plenty.
CV
Point Lookout, Md., August 10, 1863.