Читать книгу A Minor War History Compiled from a Soldier Boy's Letters to "the Girl I Left Behind Me": 1861-1864 - Martin A. Haynes - Страница 25

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Camp Union,

Bladensburg, Md., Sunday, Sept. 15, 1861.

IAM somewhat surprised to hear that M—— has, as you write me, given her secession-sympathizing lover the mitten. I can not work up any more sympathy for a rebel in New Hampshire than for one in Virginia, and a Manchester man who would jubilate over our defeat at Bull Run ought to be taken out into a back pasture and shot. As for my never getting home again, I’m not worrying about that. I went through Bull Run safe and sound, and I don’t believe we will ever see a harder fight than that, and there is no reason why I should not come out of the rest of the battles equally well.

There has been some sort of a shake up in the commissary department. Capt. Goodrich has had three clerks since I got out, all of whom threw up the position. He and the Brigadier General [Hooker] didn’t hitch up together very well, and now, I understand, he has quit the service.

Am I homesick? you ask. Not a bit. And that does not mean that I would not like to see you and the “old folks at home.” We are very comfortably situated just now. No signs of immediate starvation. Government rations are excellent, and we can piece out with any luxury we are willing to pay for. And drill and camp duties are so arranged that we have much time for pleasure.

I got a letter from Roger Woodbury Wednesday. He is camped on Long Island and is enjoying camp life immensely. The Division he is in will consist of ten New England regiments, and is probably designed to operate somewhere along the coast when the time comes for the grand move.

We are building a line of forts to encircle Washington on the north. Details from this brigade have worked upon two near our camp. One of these now has twenty guns mounted, commanding the country for miles around. How soon we will move, we cannot tell—perhaps in a day, perhaps not for a month. We have two days’ rations constantly in readiness. The Massachusetts First has gone over into the country somewhere for a few days.

I ran into a little bunch of excitement this noon. Had gone over to a huckster’s on the road running between the camps of the Pennsylvania Twenty-sixth and Massachusetts Eleventh, to buy a pie for dinner. Saw a commotion over in the Eleventh camp which seemed worth looking into, so I went over. Had just passed the camp guard when I saw one of the boys rushing a negro out of the crush and over to the Pennsylvania camp. The negro was almost paralyzed with fright. He was a runaway, and had been with the Massachusetts boys quite a little time. His master got track of him and sent two slave catchers to get him. But when they tried to execute their mission, some of the boys promptly knocked them down and got the negro out of the way.