Chapter I: Preface

This volume does not claim to be a tactical, or strategic history of the campaigns of which it treats; it aims rather to be a narrative of the every-day life and experience of the private soldier in camp and field--how he lived, how he marched, how he fought and how he suffered. No sooner had some of the volunteers reached the front, and been subjected to the hardships and exposures of army life, than they fell sick, were sent to the hospital and were discharged without passing through any serious campaigns. Others were wounded early, were disabled and were never able to return to their regiments. The more fortunate passed sound and unscathed through battle after battle and campaign after campaign through the whole war. Three years of active campaigning and a year in the hospital was the allotment of the writer, who thus was in the service from the beginning to the end of the war.

Whatever the merits or demerits of this work may be, the impressions and the composition are my own. They are an elaboration of notes made during the war and directly after it, following which, it has taken the form of a diary.

The part of the work which has been least interesting, consumed more time and required some research, has been in fixing the dates when the different incidents occurred, they having passed entirely from memory long ago. With these few words, the work is submitted by the writer to his comrades of those four eventful and trying years, when the life of the Republic hung in the balance, in the hope that it may be an aid in calling to mind fading recollections of pleasant incidents, as well as heroic deeds performed by comrades.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

LEARNING TO BE A SOLDIER 9

Leaving Camp Lincoln for the front. At Baltimore, Maryland.
Cantaloupes and Peaches. Annapolis, Maryland. Chesapeake
Bay oysters. Assisting negroes to escape. Doing picket duty
on the railroad. A Negro husking. Chaplain Ball arrives from
Massachusetts. Assigned to the 2d Brigade, 2d Division, 9th
Army Corps.

CHAPTER II

THE NORTH CAROLINA CAMPAIGN 27

On shipbound. Burial at sea. At Hatteras Inlet. Battle of
Roanoke Island. Battle of Newbern. Reading Johnnies' love
letters. Athletics. Battle of Camden. Went to the relief
of the 2d Maryland.

CHAPTER III

IN VIRGINIA UNDER GENERAL POPE 53

A ride in the Confederate doctor's "One horse Chaise."
Living off the country. Learning the distance to Germania
Ford. The Second Battle of Bull Run. The Battle of Chantilly.

CHAPTER IV

WITH MCCLELLAN IN MARYLAND 83

The Barbara Fretchie Incident. The Battle of South Mountain.
Death of General Reno. The Battle of Antietam. Clara Barton.
President Lincoln visits the army. Visited a farmhouse very
near a Confederate Camp.

CHAPTER V

THE FREDERICKSBURG CAMPAIGN 101

A hard race for a pig. Chaplain Ball returns home. Picket
duty along the river. The Battle of Fredericksburg. Burying
the dead. Christmas revels with the Confederates. A band of
horn-blowers. A raid on the sutler. A costume ball at Hotel
de Ville.

CHAPTER VI

PLAYING SOLDIER IN KENTUCKY 127

Our breakfast at Baltimore. The trip west. The Reception at
Mt. Sterling. Moved into the town.

CHAPTER VII

THE CAMPAIGN IN TENNESSEE 137

We crossed the Cumberland Range. The patient mule. Seeing
a railroad engine with a train of cars make a dive. The
siege of Knoxville. Will you lend me my Nigger Colonel.
Re-enlistment. Recrossed the Mountains, returning to Kentucky
on the way home, on our re-enlistment furlough.

CHAPTER VIII

HOME ON A RE-ENLISTMENT FURLOUGH 155

The trip home. Reception at Worcester. The Social Whirl. We
returned to Annapolis.

CHAPTER IX

WITH GRANT IN VIRGINIA 159

The Battle of the Wilderness. The Battle of Spotsylvania
Courthouse. Johnnies caught un-dressed. The Battle of
Bethseda Church. The Johnnie who wanted to see the sun rise.
Life in the trenches during the siege of Petersburg. Wounded.

CHAPTER X

LIFE IN THE HOSPITAL 182

That ride in the ambulance. Emory Hospital. The woman with
my Mother's name. The dreadful death rate. President Lincoln's
Second Inauguration. Booth's Ride. Doing clerical work in
Philadelphia. Discharged.