Part 2

While there was so much life astir in Camp Mitchell, it must be acknowledged that a few of the men were down-hearted, particularly those about to leave wives and children; and who could blame them? There were heavy hearts in the homes of those boys. One man when called upon to give a written consent for his sons to enlist, remarked that he felt as if he were signing their death-warrants. For there was a terrible uncertainty for soldiers in those days and the much-quoted silver lining of the heavy clouds overhanging our country, was yet to be discovered in the future efforts of her loyal sons. Cripples and sick men were returning from the front and occasionally somebody's child was brought home for burial. The failure of the Peninsula Campaign, followed by the disaster at Bull Run, were bad records, scarcely effaced by the hard-earned victory at Antietam. And yet, amid such desolation the American people of the North never ceased to give of blood and treasure and the boys kept marching on, the matrons and the maidens smiling and waving farewells with hearts and eyes overflowing, the men and boys cheering, bands playing, fifes shrieking and drums beating. The boys marched away, the hospitals filled, little mounds dotted many a Southern field, the ranks thinned and the scene was repeated again and again until victory came; and then it was time to count the cost. Those who suffered were the ones to cast the reckoning.

On the 19th of September, 1862, the regiment was mustered into the service of the United States. The preliminary of scanning-over the men was performed during a dreary rain storm, by regular army surgeons, the men in line by company. Few were rejected and those for defects of eyes or teeth, or for manifest feebleness. There was Ziba Cloyes of Co. G, a man of sixty years, who had enlisted as being only forty-four, gray hair and a general suspicion of advanced years about him. The surgeon reached him in the line.

"What is your age, sir?"

"Forty-four."

The surgeon smiled. "Open your mouth."

Ziba obeyed, disclosing a full set of teeth such as would have delighted many a dude. Then he brought them together with a sharp snap.

"Put your finger in there," he said, again opening his jaws to their widest limit.

"You will do, sir," said the surgeon as he passed, with a broad grin, to the next man.

After the examination came the formal muster-in by companies, and Co. G were then an arm of the government and on the direct road to active service. Orders thereafter emanated from officers of the general government and the State was duly accredited. Co. G had saved Canastota from a draft.

Sept. 25th, with their new rubber-cloth knapsacks, haversacks and canteens, at an early hour, Co. G were mustered for the road. Teams had been generously offered by the people far and near, gratuitously, and on that morning to the number of more than one hundred blocked the streets of the village, long before daybreak, in waiting to carry the regiment to Canastota.

The loading was quite slow and consumed considerable time, but the day was fine and the roads in excellent condition and the journey to Peterboro was made without further delay. In that pleasant little village the regiment left the wagons and marched into the park, where tables were spread on the green and laden with good fare. While the boys were eating, they were favored with a speech from Hon. Gerrit Smith. He was seated upon a white horse. His deep, eloquent tones were heard above the clatter of dishes. It was his wish that the boys be not withheld from eating. Above his head waved the stars and stripes at half-mast, in memory of Capt. Barnett, killed at Antietam--a Peterboro boy. All that was saddening, all that was eloquent and nobly good in the place, was not so appealing just then, as the feast before them; the boys of Co. G were hungry. After the feast and the address of welcome and God-speed, the wagons were again mounted.

The long train reached Canastota about 5 p.m. They were unloaded south of the town and the men given their first experience with those handsome new knapsacks, as they marched (bent forward like pack-peddlers) through the village streets. It was their first experience, also, in straggling--the head of the regiment led by the Hamilton band, was approaching the Peterboro St. bridge as the rear of the column passed into Center St., strung nearly around the square.

A platform had been built in a field north of the Crouse residence and near the railroad. Prominent citizens of Cortland and Madison were on the platform; Gen. Bruce was speaker. Guards were thrown around the enclosure to keep the crowd outside, but not to exclude the relatives and friends. Caresses and sobbing, tears and forced gaiety marked that occasion. Little ones were there and the father fed himself with one hand as he pressed his child to his breast with the other. Old age came also, and parents trembling with years, tried to be brave as their part in the war, if nothing more. Even the abundance of choice food supplied for the men was hardly relished under the strain of parting; so the women filled the haversacks, poured coffee into the canteens, completing the whole with a hearty kiss and sent the boys on their way. There were times, when the happiest soldier boy was he, who, when going to war, left none at home to weep for him.

A train of emigrant cars received the regiment and at daybreak next morning they reached Albany. A good breakfast was served in a building near the depot. A portion of the regiment was taken over the ferry and the remainder, including Co. G, marched to the executive mansion where Gov. Morgan presented the stand of colors, D. J. Mitchell responding.

The boys will ever remember their ride down the rail along the Hudson. At every station and in homes along the road, in the fields and on the river, wherever men, women or children were seen, their handkerchiefs and hats were waved to cheer the soldier boys. The boys in blue threw kisses to the blushing girls, or upon brown paper or pieces cut from lunch boxes, wrote and cast forth gentle words of appreciation. Really it must have grown monotonous to those people, as soldiers were passing nearly every day; if so, it was such a monotony as they appeared to enjoy immensely. With some of the men of Co. G the situation was too serious for trifling--they were leaving their Marias and Nancys and Kates.

City Hall barracks, New York City--never forget them. The postoffice building now covers that ground. Bunks floored with slats to sleep upon, into which the many occupants had crawled, each time carrying in from the floors a fresh supply of sand to fall into the eyes of the fellows in the lower berths; the rooms ill-ventilated and odorous of many stalwart smells. The food was unattractive and few of Co. G had the hardihood to partake. Just one cheering feature of the situation, was the hope ever constant, that their stay would be brief. They stopped but one night and a day. As evening approached they were marched down to a covered dock and remained there in the dark, unlighted place, awaiting the arrival of a steamer to take them over to Jersey.

Soon as darkness came on the men became very quiet as though the bogie-man was abroad. By and by a clicking, cracking sort of noise came out of the depths of darkness, soon followed by a smacking sound. Co. G were eating cheese--the other companies were eating cheese.

"Commandants of companies will see that their men are kept together," roared the colonel.

The officers could not see very well in the dark. The men broke open no more cheese boxes. They had spied the boxes through the gathering gloom on their first arrival and simply waited patiently for darkness.

John Schultz, a German, and member of Co. G, had sat himself down on the outer timber of the wharf and fell asleep. He had not removed his knapsack. What his canteen contained is not known. He nodded awhile, snored a little and suddenly disappeared. Some one raised the cry that a man had fallen into the slip. A police boat picked old John out and soon he returned, thoroughly wet and considerably sobered.

Near midnight a steamer reached the wharf and took the regiments away to Port Monmouth, the northern terminus of the Delaware and Raritan Bay R. R. Once more the raiding propensities of the boys were exhibited upon a car-load of peaches on a siding, but they were promptly restrained. The men were not thieves; they had somehow reached the conclusion that a change in dress demanded a change in morals. They knew there was some sort of transformation going on within them, as without, and certainly they must act differently than when they were plain civilians. Instead of being peaceful lambs at home, they must be wolves and hunt in packs. But a few months of strict discipline set them aright.

It was Sunday afternoon when the regiment reached Philadelphia, tired and hungry. A lunch had been served on the train early in the day, but that was only a "hand-out." At Philadelphia many thousands of men of passing regiments, were fed at the Cooper's Union refreshment rooms. So Co. G, though only one-tenth of a regiment, were favored with plenty of clean water, soap and towels and then were served with a delicious meal of good substantial food, served on a clean cloth, from earthen dishes, "just like home," said the boys.

Philadelphia always treated the soldiers in the most generous style. A sick or wounded man felt greatly favored to be sent to a Philadelphia hospital.

After the regiment was fed, the march was taken for the Baltimore depot, several miles distant. The walks were crowded with people. Such cheering, waving handkerchiefs, tossing of kisses, helped mightily in the struggle beneath those galling knapsacks. Some of the giddy girls rushed up to the ranks and exchanged handkerchiefs bearing their names; others tossed flowers among the boys, and "good-by," "God bless you," was heard, from the start to the finish.

The cars in waiting were ordinary cattle cars, in which rough board seats were built. This was the first acquaintance the men had with such sort of conveyance. For the officers, a coach was provided, but many of them remained with their men.

In the recent war with Spain, coaches were provided for the men; and for the sick, sleeping cars and dining cars, all of which was perfectly right. Between Washington and any portion of the eastern and Middle states, no soldier, during the War of the Rebellion, should have been obliged to ride in a car built for cattle, particularly after the war had progressed for over one year.

At Baltimore the namby-pamby feature of the excursion ceased, Enfield rifles were dealt out to the companies, together with accoutrements, the cartridge box, belts, etc. That seemed like war. No cartridges were issued; those came on Arlington Hights.

The city of Baltimore had shown, to some extent, an inclination in favor of secession. Many of its young men had gone to the Confederate lines and a strong feeling against federal interference with secession was very noticeable among a certain class of the citizens. Troops were stationed there to preserve order.

The regiment was marched into an open street with guards stationed to prevent the men from wandering about the city. Co. G remained strictly passive within bounds and found no opportunity for doing otherwise. They were exemplary fellows when under guard.

An unusual place for a dining hall was that at Baltimore--on an upper floor near the depot. Very good food was supplied, particularly the coffee.

Co. G were very fond of coffee; although at that early day it had not become so necessary to those heroes in embryo as it was a few years later. The experience of soldiers generally in that war, favored the use of coffee. It was food as well as drink. When a fellow was nearly fagged, on a severe march, the mention of coffee appeared to brace him, and a hand would slip into the haversack for a pinch, only to tide him along. A spoonful of coffee in a canteen of water lifted one comfortably over many a weary mile. To abolish the whisky ration was wise. To have taken away the coffee would have endangered the cause.

Coffee and the letters from home were two important auxiliary supports of the nation. Those letters were a power. Nothing went just right when the mail was delayed. Anticipation is a great word and the soldiers worked it for all it is worth; on all the various grades of the psychic thermometer from zero to fever heat. Ah, when fever heat was struck, the indication was reliably certain that she had "gone back on" her soldier lad.

Clean cattle cars were supplied at Philadelphia, but the sort in which Co. G traveled from Baltimore to Washington were fragrant of stable odors. The distance was little over forty miles, yet the entire night was consumed. That scheme of traveling nights and loafing around half dead during the daytime, was never explained. Some of the men had a suspicion that Col. Brown was fearful that he might lose some of his men if he changed cars in the night time, and so corralled them the same as other stock. However that might have been, in his regiment the most remarkable desertions were among the officers.

Co. G did not enlist to become deserters and the few of them who did desert were scarcely missed; and a halo of glory which hung over the heroic Co. G at the close of the war obscured, if it did not eliminate, all weak points. Orators and newspapers accorded them glory, the popular cry glorified them. Why not place the laurel crown right here?

September 30th was a beautiful day, but warm in Washington. Co. G jumped down from their cattle cars and were marched to cattle barracks near the capitol. There was plenty of space for camping, but no tents had been issued to them. Those barracks terraced up the hill, resembled barns, rough boarded and whitewashed. The lawmakers over in the huge marble building nearby, reclined upon soft cushions. The sons of their constituents, who had come down to settle a serious difference stirred up in that building, were marched into foul-smelling barracks because they were soldiers. It was too bad to treat American troops that way.

At those barracks the feeding place for soldiers at that time was abominable in filth and mussiness. Coffee was served in what the boys named swill-pails, with a coating of grease outside and inside. The cooks and waiters bore hands and faces that lacked for soap and water. Many a bold soldier boy, after a peep into the feeding room, retired to a convenient refreshment saloon and bought his meals. As for Co. G, they said little but thought much, resolving that a revelation should appear as the years moved along, and even thus it is recorded, long after those slip-shod cooks have ceased to slop, and longer since the boys have any use for them. And now the vindictiveness of Co. G is spent.

Unfortunately, before Co. G could be taken out of Washington some of its members had filled themselves with poor liquor. The same fellows had given trouble while en route from the North, and on various occasions suspicious looking bottles were taken from them by the officers and thrown from the train. More shame for Co. G, who were not fighting under the banner of King Alcohol.

In the middle of the day column was formed and the boys marched out on Pennsylvania Avenue. Numbers of small boys flanked the line bargaining for the task of carrying knapsacks--carts were there for the same purpose and a brisk bargaining ensued. It was indeed a comfortable way to carry a knapsack--transferred to a cart or to the back of a negro boy. Thus disburdened, marching was easier. The air was hot, the roads very dusty. Across Long Bridge they went, past Forts Runion and Albany, to an old camp known as Camp Chase, nearly one mile in rear of the Lee mansion, on Arlington Hights. Old A tents were there, pitched and ready for occupation, true, not as clean as desirable, but a shelter which a little labor of dusting and arranging greatly improved.

Routine is the term expressive of life in camp. The soldier of experience is a stranger to monotony--he is part of a machine. All the comforts and amusements he can get outside of the routine life, are luxuries to be dissipated at a word of command.

Co. G dropped into the routine of camp life with good grace. They threw down brush upon the sacred soil of Virginia, they filled their ticks with dried grass, then spreading their blankets, composed themselves for the sleep of innocence, their knapsacks as pillows affording support to the shoulders galled in carrying them. Oh, those knapsacks. Sleep on, brave; bulge out knapsack, you are to be reconciled shortly.

Suddenly their dreams were broken--the day had dawned. From near and far came the bugle blast and the rattle of fife and drum. Hungry mules took up the refrain in varying keys. The boys of G soon heard the voice of Orderly Moore, "Co. G, fall in for roll-call!"

Drilling with the guns was for the first time attempted at Camp Chase and sergeants with tactics in hand, were drilling squads of men in all directions. A few lessons were given in the manual of arms by an officer of the regular army. As for Co. G, they forged ahead slowly, gradually cultivating a liking for a gun and accoutrements. They were drilled in squads, company and battalion evolutions, and rushed in this and that direction for health's sake.

The innocent verdancy of the sons of Lenox was alike typical of all the companies. Officers made clumsy work with tactics and the colonel worked out his battalion evolutions quite gingerly. One day the regiment was marched nearly a half mile with arms at a shoulder, whereas they should have moved en route with arms at right shoulder-shift--a much more comfortable position.

The captain of Co. G at this time, was an emphatic, sharp spoken man, and sometimes his orders came red-hot and snapping. In one of the other companies the captain addressed his men as gentlemen,--"Gentlemen, attention to roll-call!" or, "Gentlemen, right dress, if you please!" Captain Beck, good man, had fitted himself, originally, for hotel keeping. Capt. Tuttle was a farmer. Beck's ways were very pleasant, but Tuttle's language and style were preferable even if he did embellish his orders occasionally, and surely he felt often provoked. For some men are always lagging behind, others never learn to handle a gun properly, and occasionally a man is found who never keeps step.

There were a few officers in the regiment who really used swear-words. Co. G was composed of a sterling set of mortals who knew very well that swearing was barred by Army Regulations, and Co. G knew better than to swear at an officer; yet, to swallow such bad treatment without mental comment, equally pungent, would have been unlike some of those sorely tried warriors.

But all this time Co. G men were bracing themselves for all emergencies. Physically, they were pretty hearty. They were learning to wash their clothing and sew on buttons and do a little patching, but they, as a rule were not supplied with Scriptural reading. So it came to pass that Gerrit Smith sent down bushels of small testaments to be distributed throughout the regiment as an inducement to the men to read the Scriptures. Into those beautiful knapsacks went Co. G's testaments. Alas, and alack, they were too generally allowed to remain there. A number of the boys could not read if they would, and more did not read, as they should. No evidence is at hand to prove that a man of Co. G ever caught a bullet in the testament carried in his pocket; and as they scorned to turn their backs to an enemy those testaments escaped a glorious perforation.

While on this subject a record should be made of the good people at home who were continually writing loving letters into which was lavishly insinuated a peculiar style of sermonizing, which though kindly intended and respectfully accepted, really did not accomplish much. They declared that the armies of the North were fighting God's battles; that the Lord would reward them. Over the rebel lines just such ideas were being instilled into the minds of Southrons. But Co. G, so wise were they, as not to charge the Heavenly Father of All with any denials that came to them. If they reasoned at all they understood, that, both North and South, it was the negro up the sleeve, or in the fence, that was causing all their misery. Indeed Co. G were more fighters than philosophers.

The donations of Hon. Gerrit Smith did not cease after sending the testaments. He also gave $500 to be used for the purpose of supplying the men of the regiment with stationery; a very thoughtful gift.

While at Camp Chase the troops were reviewed by Gen. Casey, when Co. G passed in review very satisfactory, to themselves; if the boys were not praised by others at this period in their history they could not very well understand the reason. They were not so green looking now, as they were getting sunburned and all of the same shade. The water of Virginia was not agreeing with all of them, but they were quite lively. Army rations, particularly the bean and hominy, were gradually accepted as the proper food for warriors, and the company had some hearty feeders.

The locality known to Co. G as Camp Chase No. 1, was occupied about one week, when sanitary rules demanded a removal to fresh ground. Accordingly a site was selected in a field of scrub oak, which was cleared and the stumps grubbed from company streets. Such duty was called fatigue duty. Police duty, was the everyday work of policing the streets--cleaning up the camp. This duty was usually allotted to offenders, as a mild punishment, with the occasional addition of a chain fastened to a fellow's ankle to which was attached a small cannon ball. It must be recorded that Co. G had a representative in the police gang at Camp Chase No. 2, who was wearing the ball and chain because of repeated disobedience. He was the first and the last of that noble band to thus disgrace the company.

At the new camp, excellent water was found. Fresh sweet soil made wholesome tent floors. As the camp was quite near the Lee mansion frequent strolls were enjoyed through the grounds and through the building. And for the first time, while encamped there, cartridges were issued and each man when equipped was carrying forty rounds. Soon after that event came a sensation that tried the mettle of Co. G.

At two o'clock one dark morning the long-roll was sounded throughout the entire line. Starting a mile away, it came nearer and nearer, from camp to camp, until the band of the 157th struck up their drums. Buglers and drums, shouting officers and orderly sergeants startled the heroes into their respective company streets. Nor were the mules silent, mistaking the racket for an early reveille and call to feed. When the battalion was formed, the object of the alarm was met, and orders came promptly, to return the men to their quarters. That sort of drill occurred twice while the boys remained on Arlington Hights. The first time was frightful and some of the men were terribly shocked. But the second time they came forth promptly and becomingly. One year later the long-roll found them ready for anything, every pulse beating regularly and they were as calm as if on parade; for by that time they had become prime food for bullets.

Finally orders arrived to prepare for a march. The quartermaster had received his wagons and teams and among other accessions a sutler had located his tent near the camp, and was working up quite a trade in ginger snaps and green gingerbread.