Our quarters were on Pollock street, near the market and the office of the Provost Marshal. Co. B's quarters adjoined ours, and F occupied quarters on the other side of the street nearly opposite. After considerable labor in sweeping, scrubbing, making bunks, &c., we became settled down once more, comfortable enough. But our duty was no child's play. We were on guard every second day—the intermediate one being filled up (twice a week) by a march of six miles and a brigade drill of three hours or more. This did not leave much time to ourselves, after cleaning boots, polishing brasses and buttons, and brushing clothes, for we had to appear neat and tidy while on duty.
A provost guard is a kind of police-soldier, and his duties are as multifarious as the character of his office and power is indefinite. His instructions vary in detail from day to day; and, before he goes on duty for the day has a string of orders and regulations, as long as the laws of the Medes and Persians, read to him, often couched in language that could be defined to mean one thing or another, or nothing at all in particular. For example, the guard is told to examine all passes and salute all officers; to permit no fast driving; to allow no soldier or man-o'-war sailor to go by him unless provided with passes properly countersigned; to allow no citizen to pass after a certain hour, without a special permit from the provost marshal; to 'jug' every negro found out after 9 P.M.; to allow no citizen or negro to be abused; to allow no breach of the peace; to permit no horses to be tied to trees; to stop all disturbances whatever indoors or out of doors; to, in fact, keep his eyes 'peeled,' and be continually on the alert, and, if possible, do all the impossible things required of him. Four hours on post (and twice posted) performing this delightful duty, was required of the man detailed for guard. The accommodations at the guard-houses were abominable. The windows were broken, the bunks smashed up, poor fires, and the floors so dirty, and the cricks and crevices around so filled with vermin that one night's experience in the endeavor to get rest in them was generally sufficient to deter most of those who still retained the idea that cleanliness was a virtue from ever attempting the like again.
Major Frankle of the 17th regiment was Provost Marshal, and was a worthy successor of Col. Kurtz, of the 23d (now Chief of Police in Boston.)
I cannot enter into a relation of all the incidents which enlivened the monotony of our provost duty in Newbern, not from lack of good material—that would, perhaps, make thirty or forty pages of readable matter, but want of space admonishes me that it will not pay. Suffice it to say that, with forty or fifty thousand men in the department, a large proportion of whom were in the vicinity of Newbern—the 17th had their hands full, and the lock-up often became overcrowded, as did the jails in time. We had drunken men to arrest—street rows to quell, horse-racings, shootings and stabbings to look after—brawls in bad houses to put a stop to, and arrest drunken and half-crazed men armed to the teeth, and other duty of a no less dangerous character to perform. But I believe we did things 'up to the handle;' in fact I'm certain we did—notwithstanding there were many complaints (as there always must be in such cases) and criticisms of our method of procedure.
To add to our already heavy labor, shortly after we were in the city, the marine battalion (which I have before incidentally spoken of,) had refused to do further duty, and were placed in our custody. These gallant fellows had been shamefully used. When enlisted in New York city, they were promised $18 per month for the privates, or sailors, and pay in proportion for the petty officers. They had been in the service over a year, had not received any pay, clothing, or allowances for the same, and were informed that they would not be recognized in any other capacity than soldiers, with whom they must consider themselves on an equal footing in pay, as in all other respects. Considering this a violation of agreement, they refused as a body to shoulder a musket or do any kind of duty, and thus passively mutinied. The men of the 17th pitied the poor fellows, and showed them many acts of kindness. The Major, too, while he had to enforce their imprisonment, sympathized with the marines, and, I have reason to believe, did all in his power to have their just claims considered, and their wrongs righted; but the knot on the 'red tape' which bound the poor fellows could not be opened, and it was not cut. So, after a two month's imprisonment, they were given the choice of servitude in the forts as criminals, or the alternative of enlisting in the navy, and they wisely accepted the alternative. I think theirs was a case of peculiar hardship. Some of those human kites which abound in large cities started the project of their enlistment, without the approval of the Government, made money out of the affair, and left their victims to curse them for many a weary heartburn, many an anxious, hopeless thought of home, and of a perhaps destitute family.
One of Co. K's men, named Finn, at one time a guard over the marines, allowed two of them to go out to purchase something at the market, but the Major, somehow, discovered the charitable error, and rushing up to the guard, said:
"Vat for you let ze marines go away?"
"But they'll come back again, sir."
"O—fool—fool—I vill have you put under arrest and court-marshal!"