Part 13

Two of our fellows who were captured at Gettysburg have got in from the parole camp at Annapolis. When they came I expected to see George Slade with them. I had a letter from him only a few days before announcing that he had just got in from a “hell upon earth”—a rebel prison—“tired, dirty and lousy,” as he expressed it—and asking me to send him five dollars. And now they bring me word that he is dead. I had no better friend in the regiment than good, loyal old George Slade.

Another detachment of the Second Cavalry has arrived here, among whom are some of the boys who went out of our regiment at Alexandria, and from them we get authentic news of all the boys. Rod. Manning was killed instantly at Culpepper—shot in the mouth. “Heenan” was not killed, although he had a fierce saber cut on his head. When our boys went to pick him up he told them to let him die where he was. They were, in fact, so hard pressed that they could not have got him off anyway. But he has since turned up as a prisoner in Richmond.

There has been a little disturbance up country. One of our officers engaged in recruiting negroes was shot by an exasperated slaveholder. Another officer came down today for a force to go up and preserve order, and also for a gunboat to prevent them from running their slaves from Maryland over into Virginia. A detachment of cavalry has gone up. It beats everything how the contrabands are coming in both from Maryland and Virginia. They come sometimes in squads of fifteen or twenty, and most of the men go into the army or some branch of the government service. Those coming from Maryland are not sent back into bondage, as formerly, but if the owner is loyal he receives three hundred dollars for his man, who is put in the army. This will make Maryland a free state before many years. The situation is very displeasing to the old secesh planters.

We are building a combination guard- and block house, of logs, in which a howitzer will be mounted to command the main entrance to the prison camp.

One of our men who deserted at Yorktown returned today—brought back under guard; and I hear there are quite a number of men at Washington who deserted right after the first Bull Run battle. It will be a corker on them if they have to make up the time they have lost.

I have a bundle of curios I would like to send home by express. There is no express office here, but the sutler brings down all the express matter directed to the Point. Bill Pendleton, of this company, who was mail agent, used to carry bundles to Washington for the boys, but he had some trouble with the captain of the boat and has been relieved.

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_CXVI_

POINT LOOKOUT, MD., _November 1, 1863_.

My box came today, bringing a good supply of clothing, so I think I can hold out pretty comfortably this winter. I am, also, unusually well fixed as to quarters. Have rearranged to take in Bill Pendleton. Bill and I have an upper bunk, and Dan. a lower bunk all to himself. Bill has a good mattress and half a dozen quilts and we undress and go to bed like folks. I found much more of an eatable nature than I expected in my box. We are clearing out cakes, pies and apples, and are surveying one of those big onions to find the most available point of attack.

Bill Ramsdell won out in his court martial, was acquitted, released from arrest, and returned to the company for duty yesterday. I find Bill has a very bitter feeling against Captain Gordon and attributes most of his troubles to him. The captain warmly congratulated Bill and told him he had done everything he could to secure his acquittal. But Bill grimly says he knows better.

Last night was a night of excitement over attempts of prisoners to escape. Three or four different parties had their plans all laid. One squad had made arrangements with a sentry to let five men pass beyond his beat, paying him a handsome sum in greenbacks; but no sooner did he get their money than he betrayed them to the provost marshal. The consequence was that a squad of cavalrymen was lying in wait and two of the adventurers were severely wounded. The sympathies of our boys are all with the Rebs and against the fellow who was mean enough to take their money and then give them away. Two other parties had tunnels completed from their tents to a point outside the fence, but their schemes miscarried. I was down at my tent, eating my supper, when the “long roll” beat at the guard house, and I never knew before that there were so many logs and mud holes on Point Lookout as I tumbled over and into in my haste to answer the call.

_Monday Evening._

More improvements! I wish you could see our stove. It is the biggest box stove ever made, I guess. It is not exactly _in_ our tent, but one end is. If the whole apparatus was there wouldn’t be room for anything else. It is a government stove. We discovered a nest of about fifty, and one dark night not long ago the Second confiscated the whole lot. I hear they are coming around tomorrow to pick them up, in which event we have done a good deal of heavy lugging for nothing.

Col. Bailey has been living in one of the houses “down town,” but today his tent is being fixed up for his reception. I do not know whether he is going to move his wife up to camp or not.

Being off duty today I went oystering. Got lots of them, and cut my fingers all to pieces shucking them.

Two volunteer recruits for our company came down on the boat tonight. They are a decided novelty—living proofs that there are a few left who do not wait to be drafted.

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_CXVII_

POINT LOOKOUT, MD., _November 8, 1863_.

There is more trouble for our last batch of second lieutenants. When commissioned, their names were dropped from the rolls of enlisted men; but when it came to being mustered, it could not be done, the regiment not having men enough. They are not on the rolls of enlisted men, and cannot be mustered as officers, so they are wondering where they are and how they are going to get any pay for the past four months. It is a serious problem for some of them who have spent considerable sums on officers’ outfits.

My big stove, “The Swamp Angel,” has been taken away, and I don’t know as I am very sorry, it was such an infernally clumsy contrivance. We had the fun of stealing it, anyway. Captain Gordon says he has made arrangements for a little sheet-iron stove for each tent, which will be much better.

Our two new recruits from Manchester have both been placed in my tent. One, named Messenger, was in the Sixteenth Regiment. I do not remember the name of the other. [Jason Sherwood, a Seventeenth man, who served in Company F and re-enlisted shortly after his discharge.]

A couple of steamers were in collision, out on the bay, Friday night. One, the “Curfew,” was sunk, and the other, the “Louisiana,” was towed in here the next day by a gunboat. One of them, it is stated, has been engaged in the hunt for the “Alabama.”

Last Wednesday was state election day in Maryland, and several wagons rigged out with flags and banners, and loaded with citizens and unarmed soldiers, went up to St. Mary’s. It reminded me of some of my old election rackets in New Hampshire.

The wild geese are beginning to come along. One small flock passed over the camp yesterday. Quite a number of shots were fired at them, and one big fellow came down. The residents here say there will be big rafts of them on the river this winter.

A schooner has just gone ashore near camp, in trying to get around the point. Our guard details are so arranged now that we are on duty only every fourth day. If this continues, we will have an easy time this winter.

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_CXVIII_

POINT LOOKOUT, MD., _November 14, 1863_.

The Fifth Regiment has just landed and gone into camp. They came down from Washington yesterday afternoon, but did not land until this morning. There are 750, mostly substitutes, and I hear they have not come to help us on guard duty, but to be drilled preparatory to going to the front. We have the cutest little sheet-iron stove that ever was, set up and in running order.

_Monday Afternoon._

Our new-comers of the Fifth are the toughest crowd I ever saw credited to New Hampshire. They are loaded with money paid to them as substitutes, and no sooner were they landed than almost every man was loading up with supplies from the sutler’s. They are not going to do any guard duty, so we hear and so it appears. They are kept very close, having a guard about their camp, and cannot get out without a pass. If they had the same freedom the Second has, there would doubtless be a grand hiatus of the bounty fellows.

Two prisoners were shot yesterday. The Fifth’s drum corps was playing “Dixie,” and when they got through the Rebs crowded up to the fence and gave “Three cheers for Dixie!” The demonstration soon became riotous and threatening, and was passing beyond all control, when the Twelfth man on guard at that point fired into the crowd and brought the crazy fellows to their senses.

Bill Ramsdell is doing duty right along, but he came very near getting into another scrape the other night. You must know that we soldiers have a free-and-easy way of appropriating to our own use any little bit of government property that will contribute to our comfort. It isn’t stealing. We all do it. The government has sent whole shiploads of boards here, for fences, houses, &c., and if we fellows want one or two to build a bunk or fix our quarters, we take them, and no harm done. Well, the other night Bill went out on a piratical cruise, shouldered a board, and was almost into camp with it when, as ill luck would have it, he ran up against General Marston himself, who ordered him to drop his load, personally escorted him down to headquarters, and turned him over to the guard. But Bill pulled up two or three tent-pins, crawled out under the canvas, and in due time appeared in camp lugging his board, which he had gathered in again on his way up. As all this took place at night, and as the Twelfth was on guard, Bill flattered himself no one would ever be any wiser as to who the prisoner was. But he was recognized by one of the guard, who thought the escape of Marston’s own prisoner too good a thing to keep, and it leaked to the officer of the guard. In due time a guard appeared in camp hunting for “a man named Ramsdell.” But nobody knew any such man. The guard was a mighty decent fellow, and didn’t rake with a fine-tooth comb. We kept Bill out of sight until a new officer of the guard came on, when the matter was forgotten or dropped at headquarters.

I did not get off with my guard duty day before yesterday quite as well as I expected. A cold rain set in, and if it had not been for the overcoat and rubber blanket that came in my box, I should have suffered. That day we occupied, for the first time, the new guard house, which, however, had not been shingled, and it rained harder inside than out. So I came down to my tent and sat while not on post, and in this way made the best of a dismal situation.

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_CXIX_

POINT LOOKOUT, MD., _Saturday Evening, November 21, 1863_.

Rainy and dreary outside, but inside is warmth and comfort. There is a good fire in the little stove, the tent is tight as a drum, and there is a snug warm bunk for me when I get ready to turn in.

You appear to be having quite a little run of adventures. Well, here is one of mine. The other day I took an outing up into the country, just to see what sort of a place it is up there. It was dark when I got within a mile of camp, and I was tired and anxious to get in the shortest way. I knew that by the route which would save me half my travel I would have to wade a network of little creeks, but that didn’t trouble me, and across-lots I started. Wading into creek No. 1, I found myself up to my middle, with a strong tide setting in. But I was in for it, and I kept forging ahead, but when I came to the last crossing I wished I had gone the other way. This was at the point where the creek empties into the river. It was not wide, but the tide was setting into it like a millrace. I waded in. Once or twice I thought I would be swept off my feet and floated up the creek like a piece of driftwood. But I got through—and so ended my soul-stirring adventure.

It is reported that we are to have “Sibley” tents for winter quarters, and that all the improvements we have been making will have to go to make way for the new arrangement. The Sibley is much larger than our A-tents, and is a great canvas cone supported by a center pole. Ours are to be stockaded about four feet high on logs planted on end in the ground, and ten men will make a tent’s crew. Each tent is equipped with a stove, and the whole outfit makes the most comfortable quarters imaginable. The only drawback is the trouble of making the change.

The new men of the Fifth are making a great deal of trouble by their attempts to desert. Last Tuesday several made the venture, and one party got clean away by taking a boat from the beach at our camp. As a result, Marston has ordered all the boats taken away, and there is the end of our boating and oyster raking. Two Subs managed to get out to a schooner, and struck a bargain with a negro—who was captain, cook and all hands—to set them on shore outside our picket line. As they landed, a squad of mounted men went tearing up the beach and gathered them in, while a gunboat went after the schooner and brought it in as a prize.

Colonel Bailey has had an old shanty moved up here, which I suppose he intends to have fixed up for himself and wife. He has been quartering down on the point, and it is reported that General Marston has ordered him to make his quarters with his regiment.

Rats! Rats!! Rats!!! We are overrun with them. They swarm everywhere, and are big enough to waylay a cat. They run over us as we lie in our bunks, and the other night one dropped plump in my face from the upper bunk. One of the fellows in that bunk got his hand on one and combed it across the tent, where it struck the boards with a loud thump and a terrified squeak.

I hear the Fifth are going to take their turn at guard duty tomorrow. If they do it will make our duty much easier.

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_CXX_

POINT LOOKOUT, MD., _November 28, 1863_.

Quite a relief it is to us overworked fellows to have the Fifth take their turn at guard duty. We cannot now be called upon oftener than every third day, and probably not as often as that. You need have no uneasiness about small pox here. There is only one case in this regiment, so far as I know. Most of the cases are from the prison camp. The small pox hospital is outside the lines, and the guard are immunes who have had the disease.

_Evening._—I have just had a good supper of oysters, and the papers bring us news of a great victory at Chattanooga, so I am feeling pretty well both in body and mind.

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_CXXI_

POINT LOOKOUT, MD., _Sunday, December 6, 1863_.

If I had only known, I need not have been dreading, as I have, the cold nights coming, with guard duty out in the snow and rain. I have served now coming on three years, without asking any favors nor getting any. But last Tuesday Colonel Bailey issued an order detailing me as mail carrier for this regiment. It is decidedly the softest job at Point Lookout. I am entirely relieved from all guard duty and drill. Our mail comes in every other day, and I go down to the boat—about a quarter of a mile—bring up the mail and distribute it, and the next morning carry the outgoing mail down to the boat. That is all there is to it. Really an army postmaster, Jesse Dewey has been performing double duty for a time, as orderly sergeant and mail carrier, but the two jobs interfered with each other, and I am the beneficiary.

During the past week our regiment received an installment of about 175 substitutes. Company I got a dose of twenty. There are a few good men among them, but they are mighty few. Most of them are foreigners, and many of them are just watching for an opportunity to desert. Three or four got away the other night in a boat that came ashore from one of the gunboats. The officer left his boat without a guard, and perhaps there wasn’t any swearing when he came for it and it was gone. It takes the iron hand to keep such a gang in bounds. More than twenty of them have already been tied up to the flagstaff, bucked and gagged, or otherwise disciplined. We have never had a guard around our camp until today, but now it is to be a fixture. So much extra work for the boys, all on account of these human vermin that New Hampshire is filling up her old regiments with. The old men are terribly disgruntled. It makes no difference to me personally, and it does seem good to turn in every night for an unbroken rest. The story is going that we are to be relieved by detachments of the Invalid Corps and sent to the front before long. I have no idea though that we will be sent away until the spring campaign opens. George Colby came down the first of the week and is clerking in Bailey’s sutler shop. [Geo. H., then of Manchester, and later, until his tragic death, in the employ of the railroad at Plymouth, N. H.]

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_CXXII_

POINT LOOKOUT, MD., _Sunday, December 13, 1863_.

The mail did not go to Washington today. Last night, after I had gone to bed and to sleep, the mail agent came in, woke me up, and told me to have my mail at headquarters before three o’clock. So I turned out of my bunk at half-past two. It was dark as a pocket, raining great guns, and the wind blowing a hurricane. I put on my overcoat and rubber poncho and paddled down to headquarters. But, a few minutes ago, Jess. Dewey stuck his head into the tent and told me the mail agent was still here and the mail had not gone out yet.

It is among the possibilities that the rebels may attempt to rescue the prisoners here, and every precaution is being taken against any such movement. The road up into the country is patrolled at night, and the gunboat squadron has been reinforced until we now have ten vessels here ready for any emergency.

Frank Everett, in the Manchester _Mirror_ office, writes his brother Henry that Farnsworth is back in the _American_ office, having resigned his position in the army.

_Monday, December 14._

There has been a terrible gale today, and it is a wonder to me that my tent has not taken to itself wings and flown away. Efforts are soon to be made to get the old men to re-enlist. They will be given a furlough of thirty days and a big bounty. Captain Gordon is to be the recruiting officer for this regiment, and will commence operations very soon. I shall not re-enlist.

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_CXXIII_

POINT LOOKOUT, MD., _December 19, 1863_.

Our old regiment got another dose today—350 Subs., off the same piece as our first lot. It is tough on us old New Hampshire boys. Quite a number of our precious Subs got away night before last, and yesterday morning a detachment started out to scour the country for them. Four were picked up and sent in yesterday. The detachment has not yet returned, and are searching every barn and haystack, and we hope they will get some more, living or dead—preferably dead.

_Sunday, December 20._

This is comfort—the wood pile for a seat and my overcoat for a cushion. It is cold and blustering outside, but a good fire in our hide stove makes it warm and comfortable within. By the way, I am going to move before long—am to have a tent all to myself, for a post office.

The old rumor factory is in full operation. The latest story is quite ingenious. According to this story, which has leaked down to some veracious fellow from some headquarters, the old men of the regiment are to be mounted and take the place of the cavalry detachment now here. Bill Ramsdell is to be sergeant-major of the new organization, but our non-commissioned officers are to stay and look after the conscripts.

Mrs. Bailey has gone home—went a few days ago, with Hen. Pillsbury as her attendant. He has a twenty days furlough.

A few days ago the Reb. prisoners, led by their sergeants, made an organized assault on one of their cook houses. I don’t know what their grievance was. One was shot dead by a sentry and several wounded. The next day ten of the sergeants who had been conspicuous in the riot were tied by their hands to the posts of the fence and given several hours in which to meditate on their sins.

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_CXXIV_

POINT LOOKOUT, MD., _December 25, 1863_.

Xmas Greetings! One of our captains said the other day that the old men would probably be discharged inside of two months, but I take no stock in the story. I was talking with Captain Platt yesterday, and he had lots of nice things to say about my wife. I learned a great deal about you and Arie Platt, and you may be sure I was an attentive listener to all he had to say.

General Ben. Butler was here yesterday, looking things over very closely, and I understand he is arranging an exchange of prisoners.

_Tuesday, December 29._

Since I began this letter no mail has come in until this morning, and none has gone out. The mail boat was sunk by ice, and I have been anxiously watching for the boat that didn’t come. I have got to carry the mail down in half an hour, so must close.

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_CXXV_

POINT LOOKOUT, MD., _December 31, 1863_.

I am in Quint’s sutler shop, writing on the head of a barrel. Quint [Atherton W., of Manchester] is sutler at the prison camp, and I help him a little, just enough to pay for the butter and other sutler’s goods that I want. I have an ocean of waste time, and the arrangement is profitable and highly satisfactory both to Quint and myself.

We had rather a jolly time here Christmas day. First, there was a greased pig, which made no end of merriment. He was one of those gaunt, ugly creatures that run wild in these southern woods. He had just been brought in, and was as wild and savage as a wolf. So when his pursuers closed in, on, over, around and under him, he made a gallant fight for liberty and freely used all the defensive weapons the Lord had provided him with. Then there were wrestling and sparring matches and a footrace.

Seven boatloads of negroes have come in from Virginia today. I was down on the beach when one load landed. There were 32 men, women and children, with all their household truck, packed into one boat. It was a smart likely-looking lot of contrabands, and no doubt some poor misguided rebel is now mourning the loss of several thousand dollars’ worth of live stock. A great many of the negroes that come in are probably from Maryland, but all are received alike, and but very few, if any, of the refugees ever get back into their masters’ hands.

_January 1, 1864._

I wish you a Happy New Year! I sat up pretty late last night playing “muggins” down at the sutler’s shop.