Diary of an Enlisted Man. Lawrence Van Alstyne
off and made to look real clean. I never yet saw the cooks wash their hands, but presume they do when they go to the brook for water.
September 18, 1862.
Mr. Parker came last night, and is to be our chaplain. He is the one who preached for us at Hudson Camp Ground, and the one we asked to have for chaplain of the 128th. He can sing like a lark, and we are glad he is here. There are many good singers in the regiment. There is talk of organizing a choir or club, and no doubt the Dominie will join it. We have more good news from the front. McClellan seems to fit the place he is in. It is reported that George Flint and Elihu Bryan have been taken prisoners. I know them well, but don't remember the regiment they went out in.
September 19, 1862.
Reports are that a great battle has been fought at Antietam, and a great victory won. Do they tell us this to keep up our courage, or has the beginning of the end really come? To-morrow we have the promise of going on picket duty. Good! anything for a change. It will give me something to write about in my diary, if nothing more. Things are getting rather monotonous, and any change will be good for us, provided it is not for the worse. Prayer meeting every night now. Chaplain Parker seems in dead earnest. He wants us all to be ready to die. Then, he says, if death don't come, we will be in better shape to live. Very few of the officers attend prayer meeting, though they encourage the men to do so.
September 20, 1862.
In spite of the fact that we are sumptuously fed, I have long longed for a good square meal off a clean table. This morning, early, I sneaked away to a farm house I had often looked at, and wondered if the people there would contract to fill me up for such a consideration as I could afford. I told them I was not begging, but would like to buy a breakfast. The lady was willing, and I was soon sitting in a chair at a clean table with a clean table-cloth and clean dishes on it. And such a breakfast! I forgot who or where I was. The smell of the victuals made me ravenous, and I ate until I could eat no more. They were pleasant people and seemed to enjoy seeing me eat. I felt guilty because I had not asked my friends to go with me, but I wanted first to investigate on my own hook, for I was not at all sure of getting anything when I set out, in which case I was going back to camp in time for breakfast, and say nothing about it. But when the hostess would not take anything for the hearty meal I had eaten, I was glad I had not brought my family with me. I gave them my heartiest thanks and returned to camp to find Company B getting ready for picket duty, and I was soon in my place ready for anything.
10 a. m. We are about six miles from Camp Millington, at a village called Catonsville. That is, the company is broken up into squads, and the one I am with is here, and in my charge as corporal. I am to keep one man on post and change him for another every two hours. Not a very hard job for any of us. The people seem very pleasant, and as the day is not very hot we are simply having a picnic. We are to pick up travelers who cannot give a good account of themselves and hold them until the officer of the guard comes round, and let him decide what to do with them. Coming here we passed Louden Park Cemetery, a beautiful place, and the largest of its kind I ever saw. Shade trees all over it, great fine monuments and vaults as large as small houses. I guess only rich people are buried there, for I saw no common headstones. But then I suppose we only saw a part of it, and the best part at that.
Night. The day has passed quietly. Nothing startling happened. The people have treated us royally, gave us all the peaches we could eat, and also gave us the credit of being the best behaved of any detail that has been here.
9 p. m. Some firing was heard on the post next ours, and which is the farthest out of any. I went out to learn what it meant. It seems a man came along and when halted, jumped the fence and ran for a piece of woods near by. Mike Sullivan started out to capture him. They shot at each other, but the man got away. Mike got a lot of slivers stuck in his face by a bullet hitting a post he was passing as the shot was fired. This is the only excitement we have had up to this time, midnight.
September 21, 1862.
Sunday morning. Nothing happened during the night. We bought a good breakfast of a family who make a business of feeding the soldiers that come here, for I was told there is a detail here every day. I wish it might be us every time. As soon as the new guard arrives we are to go back to camp and camp fare again.
2 p. m. In camp again. It seems hotter and dirtier than ever after our day in the country. Before we left Catonsville we filled our haversacks with great luscious peaches. Those that ripen on the tree the people cannot sell, so they gave us all that would fall with a gentle shake of the tree. How I wished I could empty my haversack in your lap, mother. On the way to camp we met a drove of mules, said to be 400 of them, loose, and being driven like cattle. They were afraid of us and all got in a close bunch, and the 400 pairs of ears all flapping together made a curious sight. We were told they came from Kentucky and are for use in the army. They were all bays, with a dark stripe along the back and across the shoulders, looking like a cross laid on their backs. It hasn't seemed much like Sunday. But Sunday doesn't count for much in the army. Many of our hardest days have been Sundays. But I am sleepy, having been awake all last night. It is surprising how little sleep we get along with. I, who have been such a sleepy-head all my life, get only a few hours' sleep any night, and many nights none at all. I suppose we will sometime get accustomed to the noise and confusion, that so far has had no end, night or day.
September 22, 1862.
Monday. Knapsack-drill to-day—something new to me, though I am told it is to take place every Sunday morning when in camp. As we were not here yesterday, it was put off until to-day. We marched out to the drill ground with our knapsacks on, expecting to practice as usual, except that we were loaded that much heavier. As all our belongings were in our knapsacks, they were quite heavy. We formed in column by companies and were told to "unsling knapsacks." We all had to be coached, but we finally stood at attention with our knapsacks lying on the ground wide open before us. Then the colonel, the major and the captain of the company being inspected, marched along and with the tip of their swords poked over the contents, regardless of how precious they might be to us. And such a sight as they saw! Besides our extra underclothing, some clean and some unclean, there were Bibles, whiskey bottles, novels, packs of cards, love letters and photographs, revolvers and dirk knives, pen and ink, paper and envelopes and postage stamps, and an endless variety of odds and ends we had picked up in our travels.
As soon as the inspection was over with Company A, they were marched back to camp and so all along the line until Company B, the last of all, was reached. When we got back to camp some of the companies had been there long enough to get asleep. Nothing more was required of us, and we put in the time as we chose, provided always that we observed the camp regulations.
I may never have so good a chance, so I will try and explain some of the things we have learned to do and how we do it. Begin with roll call. The orderly sergeant, Lew Holmes, has our names in a book, arranged in alphabetical order in one place, and in the order in which we march in another. If it is simply to see if we are all here, he sings out "Fall in for roll call" and we get in line, with no regard to our proper places, and answer to our names as called from the alphabetical list. If for drill, "Fall in for drill!" and then we take our places with the tallest man at the right,