Diary of an Enlisted Man. Lawrence Van Alstyne
shot for mutiny. It may possibly come later, but from all I can see and hear the trouble was entirely a company affair and did not reach beyond it. If Colonel Smith, who is said to be very strict on discipline, had taken a hand in it, we might have fared worse, but I doubt if he would allow such a cowardly trick to be played on so good a soldier as Holmes is, and has been, to say nothing of jumping a corporal over the heads of five sergeants, who have all been prompt and faithful in the discharge of their duties. Our first real sick man was sent to the hospital to-night, one of Company B, from Dover.
October 3, 1862.
Friday. Battalion-drill again to-day. That and talking about the new orderly is all I have to record to-day. The whole thing has blown over, evidently. If the cause had been just, I suppose there would have been some way to bring us to terms, but as it now appears, I think the company officers are ashamed of their part, and Kniffin, if he ever gets to be orderly sergeant, will have to come up by the regular route.
October 4, 1862.
Saturday. Battalion-drill again. Learning to be a soldier is hard work. There has been no rain lately and the sun has dried up everything. There are no green fields here as we have at home. The ground is sandy, and where there is grass, it is only a single stem in a place, with bare ground all round it. So many feet tread it all to dust, which the wind blows all over us, but mostly in our faces and eyes. The road past our camp is a mire of the finest dust, and as hard to travel through as so much mud. We eat it with our rations, and breathe it all the day long. It covers everything, in our tents as well as outside. Our clean new tents are already taking on the universal muddy, red color of everything in sight. The only good thing about it is, it serves every one alike, piling upon the officers just as it does on the men. We are getting to feel quite proud of ourselves as soldiers. We learn fast under the teaching of Colonel Smith. The 135th N. Y. and a Mass. regiment are with us on battalion-drill and sometimes several other regiments, so that we about cover the large plain out near the bay. We get tougher and harder every day. The fodder we so often find fault with, and the hard work we are doing, is making us hard, like the work and the fare is.
October 5, 1862.
Sunday. On picket again to-day. We are at a new place, on the road to Frederick, but not as far out as Catonsville. It is plain to see it is only for practice, for we are only a little way from camp, and the other posts are far beyond us. Cavalry pickets are said to be farther out still. May be it is to give us a rest, for that it certainly does. We are out of the dust, our duties are light and the day after picket is also a day of rest. We also get fresh vegetables, which are a treat for us nowadays.
Night. We have had a day of rest. Two hours on post and the next four at liberty to loaf in the shade, is not hard work. We are in a lonely place, no houses near us, but we have had what we needed, a real rest-up.
October 6, 1862.
Monday. Back in Camp Millington, and the rest of the day is ours. A letter from Miss Hull, in answer to one written her mother. It was full of home news, and I feel as if I had been there. My homesick fit has left me, but it was a terror while it lasted. I believe it is more common than we think. I see many faces yet that look just as mine felt. Like me they keep it to themselves, or possibly tell it to their diaries, as I did to mine. I am not the only one who keeps a diary. There are plenty of others who do, and others still who say they can remember enough of it without writing it down. In the afternoon Lieutenant Dutcher invited me to go for a walk. We followed the Baltimore & Ohio R. R. for about a mile and came to abandoned camp grounds nearly all the way. We found some housekeeping necessities which we brought back with us. After dress parade, we visited about until roll call, and are going to bed early, for to-morrow the grind begins again. Good-night.
October 7, 1862.
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.
October 8, 1862.
Wednesday. Have loafed about camp all day. Have not been out for drill since Saturday. But I am finding no fault. The weather keeps hot and dry, and the boys were a sight to behold when they came in from drill. Hot, dirty, tired and hungry. What would we do without the brook running past us? I wonder it doesn't choke up with the dirt it washes from us.
To-day has been election day in Baltimore, and to-night the city seems to be on fire. We have a fine view of the city by day, and of the lights by night. To-night everything seems to be ablaze, and we are wondering what it can mean. We will know in the morning when the papers come.
October 9, 1862.
Thursday. Bonfires in honor of the election of Mr. Chapin, for Mayor of Baltimore, was what so mystified us last night. The latest reports said there were riots in the city and it was being burned by the rioters. It was quite a relief to find out the truth, although we knew the city was there as soon as daylight appeared. The first death in our regiment occurred to-day in the hospital at Baltimore; it was that of John H. Smith, Hudson, N. Y. He was sick when we came here and was taken to the hospital at once. There are a few sick in our camp hospital, but nothing very serious as yet. At dress parade, a notice was read that we had been placed in General Emory's Brigade. I am sorry I cannot remember what other regiments make up the brigade, but I know the 150th N. Y. was not one. The Dutchess County regiment, lately organized, is the one hundred and fiftieth that New York has sent out, and we are greatly in hopes they may be with us all through the war.
October 10, 1862.
Friday. The air is full of rumors to-day that we are to go somewhere, and that very soon, yet no one seems to be able to trace them. Experience has taught us that we won't know for certain when we go until we start, nor where we go until we get there. Train-loads of soldiers keep going past, and have been going past nearly every day since we came here. Seems to me I never saw such a dry place. Everything is so coated with dust it is impossible to tell its original