There is no monotony in camp life. There is routine, of course, but many diversions and incidents, and something is continually happening. Last night in the small hours an order came from corps headquarters for a check-roll to be taken in every regiment instantly. For a few minutes just before midnight the whole camp was in a stir. "What was it for?" everybody was asking of everybody else. "Chesapeake Bay is full of Spanish gunboats, and they want us at once," said one of the sergeants to his men in hurrying them up. It became known this morning that a few hundred soldiers had been raising Cain at Falls Church, and Gen. Graham wanted to find out who they were. Hence this order for a check-roll. Two cavalry regiments were sent out to run in the hilarious lads, but they were only partially successful. The rest of the stampeders are reported to be in Baltimore and Philadelphia, and no one knows where else. The explanation is that the entire Sixth Pennsylvania took French leave for the Fourth.
The other evening, while I was singing with Company E, where my friend D—— belongs (whom, by the way, I wronged by intimating that the patch on his face was there as the sign of a good time passed at the "farm house," it being there, as he informs me, only to cover a boil), while we were singing some sacred songs after D—— had executed a fine jig on a foot-square board and the company's quartette has sung, "The bull-dog on the bank and the bullfrog in the pool," etc., a quick command was given for the company to "fall in" with their guns. They didn't wait for the benediction, and I fell in with them to go "where duty or danger called them." They were rushed in double-quick time into the officers' lane and halted. Then the cause of it all was whispered about. An obnoxious "shack" had been smashed into and the regiment was called out to capture those committing the deed. What happened? We met a crowd, surrounded by an armed posse, coming from that quarter and going rapidly toward the guard house. An investigation there revealed the startling fact that every one of the forty-odd boys surrounded and put under arrest at the canteen was utterly innocent. Every wrong-doer, of course, is innocent till proved guilty; but in the case of this crowd it soon became evident that innocence was indeed injured. They were nearly all "rookies"—that's the word for recruits. How could "rookies" be mixed up so largely in such an affair? A mistake has been made, that is plain. When the uproar occurred there had been a rush of the "rookies" to the spot to see what was going on; the raiders had fled and escaped, of course, and the "rookies" were hustled in. They learned a lesson early. A picture of them lined up two-deep and frightened by the menacing interrogatories of Col. Gross, while a flickering candle was thrust in the face of each one to discover who he was, and bristling bayonets stood around them; the disappointment of the officers as their mistake and failure became more and more apparent, the fright of the "rookies" as they stood there in the uncertain light and their old clothes, the glad expression of relief when they were ordered to be dismissed—this, too, would be a picture.
Evenings in camp, both among officers and men, are delightfully spent in such amusements as I have already described, in various kinds of farcical entertainments and in story-telling. The Irish element in the regiment is sufficiently prominent to keep everybody happy. A lady friend of our of Celtic stock visits us occasionally from Washington, and makes her visits memorable by the good Irish stories she tells. The other evening when she was here, and there was a lull in the conversation, she suddenly exclaimed, "Oh, do you remember the last time I was out here?" "Why, of course, we do," everybody replied. "Well," said she, "forget that and remember the Maine!" Whereupon the laughing and the story-telling began anew.
If a number of first-class romances do not grow out of the exchange of compliments between the soldier boys and the girls who crowded to the trains to see them on their way here, the postmaster of the Third will be much disappointed. Half of the mail sometimes is addressed to or comes from the numerous places where buttons were traded for bouquets, and sigh was given for sigh, and names were hastily exchanged, as the train sped away. All sorts of souvenirs are sent to Parkersburg, Athens, Cincinnati, and other places, where the senders knew not a soul before their journey through them. Unique methods of meeting the emergencies of army life are sometimes devised. One lad, having no paper, but a clean, white collar, for which he no longer has any use, fills it with a tender message, folds it in an envelope, and so gratifies his wish to communicate with the girl he left behind, while he gives her a souvenir she will cherish long and tell the story of many years after the war is over, and their grandchildren, perhaps, are gathered about their knees. Another boy has neither paper nor envelope, so he writes upon his cuff, links it together, stamps it, and so sends a message of romantic love to one, it may be, whose fond eyes and fascinating face he saw in some crowd in a strange place. If the chaplain does not have some work to do growing out of all this romance, the postmaster is no prophet, and both of them will be disappointed.
Rhymers and song-makers are not wanting. A letter left camp yesterday directed in the following poetical style:
"Hurry me away at a furious rate
To Kansas City, Missouri State,
For Miss A—— R—— wants me there—
And I'm no humbug, here's my fare."
Another letter was addressed by means of the same jingle—the name only being different. In this I regret to discover evidence that some young man is richer in sweethearts than in poetic devices.