|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 10
OFF SHORE, ALEXANDRIA. _23d._--Here we anchored last night after the
main detachment was landed, and the Vermont and Massachusetts men
remained on board another night. We hear we are to go right to the
field, where active operations are going on. This seems hard. We have
not till now given up the hope that we were not to go out into Virginia
with the rest of the men, but were to be kept here at Washington.
Fierce, indeed, are our trials. I am not discouraged entirely; but I am
weak from want of food which I can eat, and from sickness. I do not know
how I am going to live in such way, or get to the front.
P.S. We have just landed; and I had the liberty to buy a pie of a woman
hawking such things, that has strengthened me wonderfully.
CAMP NEAR CULPEPER. _25th._--My distress is too great for words; but I
must overcome my disinclination to write, or this record will remain
unfinished. So, with aching head and heart, I proceed.
Yesterday morning we were roused early for breakfast and for preparation
for starting. After marching out of the barracks, we were first taken to
the armory, where each man received a gun and its equipments and a piece
of tent. We stood in line, waiting for our turn with apprehensions of
coming trouble. Though we had felt free to keep with those among whom we
had been placed, we could not consent to carry a gun, even though we did
not intend to use it; and, from our previous experience, we knew it
would go harder with us, if we took the first step in the wrong
direction, though it might seem an unimportant one, and an easy and not
very wrong way to avoid difficulty. So we felt decided we must decline
receiving the guns. In the hurry and bustle of equipping a detachment
of soldiers, one attempting to explain a position and the grounds
therefor so peculiar as ours to junior, petty officers, possessing
liberally the characteristics of these: pride, vanity, conceit, and an
arbitrary spirit, impatience, profanity, and contempt for holy things,
must needs find the opportunity a very unfavourable one.
We succeeded in giving these young officers a slight idea of what we
were; and endeavoured to answer their questions of why we did not pay
our commutation, and avail ourselves of that provision made expressly
for such; of why we had come as far as that place, etc. We realized then
the unpleasant results of that practice, that had been employed with us
by the successive officers into whose hands we had fallen,--of shirking
any responsibility, and of passing us on to the next officer above.
A council was soon holden to decide what to do with us. One proposed to
place us under arrest, a sentiment we rather hoped might prevail, as it
might prevent our being sent on to the front; but another, in some spite
and impatience, insisted, as it was their duty to supply a gun to every
man and forward him, that the guns should be put upon us, and we be made
to carry them. Accordingly the equipment was buckled about us, and the
straps of the guns being loosened, they were thrust over our heads and
hung upon our shoulders. In this way we were urged forward through the
streets of Alexandria; and, having been put upon a long train of dirt
cars, were started for Culpeper. We came over a long stretch of
desolated and deserted country, through battlefields of previous
summers, and through many camps now lively with the work of this present
campaign. Seeing, for the first time, a country made dreary by the
war-blight, a country once adorned with groves and green pastures and
meadows and fields of waving grain, and happy with a thousand homes, now
laid with the ground, one realizes as he can in no other way something
of the ruin that lies in the trail of a war. But upon these fields of
Virginia, once so fair, there rests a two-fold blight, first that of
slavery, now that of war. When one contrasts the face of this country
with the smiling hillsides and vales of New England, he sees stamped
upon it in characters so marked, none but a blind man can fail to read,
the great irrefutable arguments against slavery and against war, too;
and must be filled with loathing for these twin relics of barbarism, so
awful in the potency of their consequences that they can change even the
face of the country.
Through the heat of this long ride, we felt our total lack of water and
the meagreness of our supply of food. Our thirst became so oppressive
as we were marched here from Culpeper, some four miles with scarcely a
halt to rest, under our heavy loads, and through the heat and deep dust
of the road, that we drank water and dipped in the brooks we passed,
though it was discoloured with the soap the soldiers had used in
washing. The guns interfered with our walking, and, slipping down,
dragged with painful weight upon our shoulders. Poor P.D. fell out from
exhaustion and did not come in till we had been some little time at the
camp. We were taken to the 4th Vermont regiment and soon apportioned to
companies. Though we waited upon the officer commanding the company in
which we were placed, and endeavoured to explain our situation, we were
required immediately after to be present at inspection of arms. We
declined, but an attempt was made to force us to obedience, first, by
the officers of the company, then, by those of the regiment; but,
failing to exact obedience of us, we were ordered by the colonel to be
tied, and, if we made outcry, to be gagged also, and to be kept so till
he gave orders for our release. After two or three hours we were
relieved and left under guard; lying down on the ground in the open air,
and covering ourselves with our blankets, we soon fell asleep from
exhaustion, and the fatigue of the day.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|