Chapter I: Preface

In the multitude of books written about the Civil War, very little is said of the enlisted man. His bravery and his loyalty are admitted and that is about all. Of his everyday life, the very thing his family and friends cared most to know about, there is hardly anything said.

It is to remedy this omission in some degree that the following pages are published. They were written by an enlisted man and are mostly about enlisted men. They are filled with details that history has no room for, and for that reason may have an interest quite their own.

They were written at different times, in different places, and under a great variety of circumstances and conditions. Some were written as the line halted for rest while marching from place to place, some while waiting for trains or other modes of transportation, but the most were written by the light of a candle or a smoldering camp-fire while my comrades, no more weary than I, were sleeping about me. All were written amid scenes of more or less confusion, and many times of great excitement. They were written because of a promise made to my parents that I would make notes of my wanderings and of the adventures I met with.

At first I found it an irksome task, taking time I really needed for rest; but as time went on the habit became fixed, and I did not consider the day's work done until I had written in my diary of the events that came with it.

The diary was kept in small pocket notebooks, of a size convenient to carry in my pocket, and be ever ready for use. There was never a lack of subjects to write about. Events crowded upon each other so fast that each day furnished plenty of material for the time I could give it. I had never been far from home. The sights I saw were new and strange to me and made deep impressions. These, as best I could, I transferred to the pages of my diary, so the friends at home could, in a way, see the sights I saw and that seemed so wonderful to me. When pages enough were written for a letter, I cut them out and sent them home to be read by any who cared to, after which they were strung together on a string and saved for me to read again, should I ever return to do it. When I did return I found the leaves had so accumulated as to make a large bundle. There was no need for me to read them at that time, for the story they told was burned too deep in my memory to be easily forgotten.

So I tied them in a bundle and put them away in an unused drawer of my desk, where they lay, unread and undisturbed for the next forty-five years.

But while the old diary lay hidden in my desk a new generation had crept upon the stage. We no longer occupied the center of it. One by one we had been crowded off, and our ranks were getting so thin we had to feel around for the touch of a comrade's elbow. Every year there were more comrades' graves to decorate, and every year there were fewer of us left to decorate them. At last we had met an enemy we could not even hope to conquer. With sadness we saw first one and then another called out, and they did not return. They had answered the last roll call, and it was only a question of a little time when the last name would be called, and the muster-out rolls be folded up and filed away.

It was with a feeling of ever-increasing loneliness that I untied the bundle and began to read the long-forgotten diary. In a little while I was a boy again, one of that great company that helped to make history read as it does. Almost half a century had suddenly rolled back and I was with Company B--"Bostwick's Tigers" we were called, not altogether on account of our fighting qualities, but because of the noise we sometimes made. I was having my share of the fun that was going, and was taking my share of the hard knocks as well.

I was never so absorbedly interested. I even forgot my meals. For weeks I thought of little else and did little else than read and copy those dim old pages. I read from them to any who would listen, and wondered why it did not stir their blood as it did my own.

But the reason is plain. To the listener it was hearsay. To me it was real. So it may be with the diary now it is printed. In the nature of things it cannot be to others what it is to me. It is a part of my life. My blood would not tingle as it does at the reading of another man's life. It is what historians had neither time nor space to write, the everyday life of an enlisted man in time of war.

L. V. A.

October, 1910.

CONTENTS

PAGE

CHAPTER I--THE RECRUITING CAMP 1

First steps as a Soldier--The five-day furlough.

CHAPTER II--THE JOURNEY SOUTH 16

The march through Hudson--The stop in New York--Breakfast at
"The Cooper Shop"--Arrival at Baltimore--When we first
heard the "Long Roll."

CHAPTER III--CAMP MILLINGTON, MD. 23

School of the Soldier--On picket at Catonsville--Trip to
Gettysburg--Dinner at Hanover--Meeting the 150th--Roast
chicken--Stuart's Mansion Hospital.

CHAPTER IV--ON BOARD THE ARAGO 61

A morning on Chesapeake Bay--At Newport News--At Fortress
Monroe--The journey South continued--Sickness and death on
board--A burial at sea--Quarantined.

CHAPTER V--QUARANTINE STATION, LA. 73

Cooking graybacks--A big catfish--Starting a graveyard--The
most trying circumstances war can bring.

CHAPTER VI--CAMP CHALMETTE, LA. 80

Spying out the land--Foiling an attempt at suicide--Clash
with the 28th Maine--An interrupted sermon--Brownell's
last words.

CHAPTER VII--CAMP PARAPET, LA. 87

Captain Bostwick gets married--In the hospital at last--Good
care and treatment--The slow process of getting well--The
Ponchatoula trip--Mosquitoes and alligators.

CHAPTER VIII--PORT HUDSON, LA. 108

Good-bye, Camp Parapet--Going up the river--Stop at
Springfield Landing--Before the works--Capt. Gifford
missing--The first assault--Stealing honey--Scared by a
snake--The second assault--The "Forlorn Hope"--Captain
Gifford comes back--Vicksburg surrenders--Port Hudson
follows suit--The laying down of arms.

CHAPTER IX--DONALDSONVILLE, LA. 149

Leaving Port Hudson--Stop at Baton Rouge--At
Donaldsonville--Living on the fat of the land--How sugar
is made--Hickory Landing--Plaquemine--Baton Rouge.

CHAPTER X--AT NEW ORLEANS, LA. 173

Good-bye to the 128th--Down the river to New
Orleans--Looking for General Grant--Finding General
Grant--Joined the Corps de Afrique--Franklin's expedition
to Texas--The return trip--Pilot Town, La.--Easy times.

CHAPTER XI--BRASHEAR CITY, LA. 184

Mustered into the service again--Waiting for orders--Up the
Bayou Teche--Stealing a horse--Meeting the owner--At
Mouton's Plantation--The return across the prairie--A sham
battle--One kind of southern hospitality--Another kind of
southern hospitality--Camp life at Brashear City.

CHAPTER XII--THE LOUISIANA STEAM COTTON PRESS 230

In winter quarters--Dull times--The fortune-tellers--An old
man's blessing--A pleasant surprise--Leave of absence--On
board the steamer Creole--Seasick--Losing Henry
Holmes--Wholesale visiting--Finding Henry Holmes.

CHAPTER XIII--ON BOARD THE MCCLELLAN 272

The start for Dixie--The McClellan is not the Creole--A
tough crowd--Man overboard--Martial law proclaimed--Arrest
of the rioters--Storm at sea--Stop at Key West--In New
Orleans again.

CHAPTER XIV--THE RED RIVER CAMPAIGN 286

Camping on The Laurel Hill--At Port Hudson again--Meeting
the 128th--Up the Red River to Alexandria--Two trips to
Grand Ecore--The river falling--The dam at Alexandria--The
burning of Alexandria.

CHAPTER XV--THE RED RIVER RETREAT 322

Guarding the pontoon train--Sleeping on feathers--Killing
the goose--Forced marching--The fight at Yellow
Bayou--Crossing the Atchafalaya--Another forced march--A
raw beef supper--Footsore and weary.

CHAPTER XVI--CAMP AT MORGANZIA, LA. 332

On picket with the western men--Smallpox appears--A pay-day
misunderstanding--Building Fort Morgan--Fourth of July
dinner--General Order 88--The army moving away.

CHAPTER XVII--OUR LAST CAMP IN THE SOUTH 346

Leaving Morganzia--In camp near New Orleans--Good-bye,
Dixie--Homeward bound.