Читать книгу Diary of an Enlisted Man - Lawrence Van Alstyne - Страница 58

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Tuesday. On duty at a place called "Monitor Mills." Have three men with me. It is only a little way out of camp, and all we have to do is to stay here for twenty-four hours, and change the guard every two hours. I have no idea why it is, but it is fun compared to drilling, and I am glad to be here.

A soldier has just gone from here who was in the battle of Antietam. He filled us full of tall stories, some of them so tall they would hardly go down. But if the half he said is true, we know little of real soldiering. Life in camp, he says, is a picnic compared with field duty. If he was as good at fighting as he is at talking about it, the Rebellion should have been squelched long ago. He made me think of some men I know, who can hardly wait to get at the Rebs, and yet who have managed to shirk everything they can in the way of duty or danger.