A Raw Recruit's War Experiences Part 1

A Raw Recruit's War Experiences.

by Ansel D. Nickerson.

APOLOGY.

This "war paper" was first read before the Rhode Island Soldiers and Sailors Society, in Providence, October 19, 1886. Subsequently it was read at the annual winter reunion of the Eleventh Rhode Island Regiment (January 27, 1887), two companies of which regiment (B and F) were recruited in Pawtucket, the former commanded by Captain Charles W.

Thrasher and Lieutenant Thomas Moies, and the latter by Captain Edward Taft. It has since been read several times before other a.s.sociations and societies. The paper was not intended for publication, nor was it originally broken into chapters, and in allowing it to be published, the author permits the urgent requests of numerous friends to outweigh his own judgment. It does not a.s.sume to be a connected or detailed history of the regiment; nor is it the history of any one company of the regiment; nor is it the diary of an officer of the regiment, but simply what its t.i.tle indicates, "A RAW RECRUIT'S WAR EXPERIENCES." More is said about Company B than of any other company in the Eleventh Regiment for the reason that the aforesaid "raw recruit's war experiences" were especially identified with that company. Being personal recollections, and to a large extent the recital of personal incidents connected with the nine months' campaign of the regiment in Virginia, must be my apology for the frequent use of the personal p.r.o.noun I.

As the events of which I speak occurred at a period in our country's history when a spade was called a spade, and among a cla.s.s of men who could not be justly accused of ambiguity of expression, my paper will be found to contain more than one "strong, old-fashioned English word, familiar to all who read their Bibles."

To those comrades whose war experiences were of a very different character from my own, and into whose hands this unpretentious little volume may fall, I trust that the recital of some of the ludicrous scenes in camp and on the march, rather than the harrowing descriptions of sanguinary battles, may not prove wholly unwelcome.

A. D. N.

PAWTUCKET, R. I., _April, 1888._

CHAPTER I.

During the winter preceding the firing upon Sumter, I was one of a group of young fellows of about my own age who regularly a.s.sembled evenings at the corner grocery of the village where we lived, to listen to older persons discuss the affairs of the nation and all other matters, moral, intellectual and social, as is the nightly custom in country groceries, and particularly the probabilities of war between the North and the South, which, I will say in pa.s.sing, every day grew more probable. Each several barrel-head in that grocery seemed to know its own occupant, and for any one else to have appropriated it to his own use, especially had he been a young man, would, I am sure, have been deemed an unpardonable breach of courtesy. The grocer himself was the acknowledged spokesman of the company, and never allowed himself to be "switched off" from the subject in hand, however pressing the demands of his waiting customers. He did not believe there would be any war; but in the event that the South should "kick in the traces," as he expressed it, "our boys would only have to arm themselves with brooms and go down there and give 'em a thrashing." This _sweeping_ a.s.sertion was received with liberal applause by all of his hearers, the impatient customers not excepted.

I hope I shall not detract from your favorable estimate of the grocer's patriotism when I add that, being a dealer in brooms himself, he remarked that he "would like nothing better than a contract to supply the government with them." I hardly need mention the fact that the grocer was a genuine specimen of the Yankee, and always kept an anchor to the windward and his eyes wide open for the main chance. "They all did it"--in war times.

I only mention this incident in ill.u.s.tration of the opinion which our northern people generally had in the winter of '60 and '61 as to the likelihood of a war with the South, and their estimate as to what would be necessary to suppress a rebellion against the government in that section of the country if, unfortunately, one should break out.

But, as we all know, the groceryman proved a false prophet. When the news of the attack upon Fort Sumter came, it found me setting type in the "Gazette and Chronicle" printing office in Pawtucket, where I had been regularly employed as apprentice and journeyman since 1846. "All work and no play" had made Jack a pretty dull boy indeed, and the war promised a vacation, temporary or permanent, which I had long been seeking, and which I at once made up my mind that I would avail myself of at the earliest possible opportunity. As the war news became more and more interesting, filling the paper nearly full every week to the exclusion of less important matters, I became more and more determined to give the country the benefit of my services. Very many of my a.s.sociates had enlisted and gone "to the front," and I could not satisfy myself with any good reason for longer remaining at home when men were so much needed to defend the honor of the old flag and a.s.sist in upholding the integrity of the government in its day of greatest peril. In the language of that good old hymn, I realized that

"I can but perish if I go,"

and said:

"I am resolved to try."

And I did. With what result will be seen.

I expected to encounter opposition at home, and consequently I kept my plans to myself. A year had pa.s.sed away, and yet I was not enrolled among the "boys in blue." Three hundred thousand nine months' volunteers were called for by President Lincoln, and proclamation was made that if the necessary quota from each State was not filled by the fifteenth of August, 1862, a draft would be resorted to. I concluded to step in out of the draft. War meetings were held almost every night in the old Armory Hall on High street in Pawtucket. I was a regular attendant in the capacity of reporter for the newspaper upon which I was employed. The speakers were generally men past middle life, whose princ.i.p.al business seemed to be to urge the young men to volunteer, and not to volunteer themselves. One evening, for some reason, there was a dearth of speakers, and after a while some one in the audience called out my name, and soon the call became so loud and so general that I was compelled to respond. I ascended the platform, and, as nearly as I can remember, I spoke as follows: "Young men, one thing has especially impressed me this evening. Every speaker who has preceded me has said to you, '_Go!_' Now, boys, I say _Come!_" and turning to a recruiting officer who sat on my right, I said, "Put my name down!" I think it was the shortest speech I ever made; at any rate, I know it was the best received. There seemed to be no bounds to the enthusiasm which was manifested, and the recruiting business in Pawtucket at once received a "boom."

After the meeting was over and congratulations were ended, I went home.

Now began the "tug of war." The house was silent--very silent--and so was I. I didn't sleep much that night. In my wakefulness I concluded not to say anything to my family about what I had done, but leave her to learn the news from some other source. But this little scheme was upset very early in the morning by the lady of the house asking me concerning the war meeting of the previous evening, and the names of the speakers. After giving her such general information as I possessed, I hesitatingly informed her that she had had the honor of entertaining one of the speakers over night. Woman like, she then wanted to know if anybody enlisted. Things were getting pretty close home now. The ice must be broken. I told her that several persons enlisted, and gave her the names of some of them; and, after a moment's hesitation, I said, "I don't know what you will think, or say, when I tell you that I was one of them, and that I am going to the war." Judge of my surprise, and of my own depreciated estimate of what I had previously considered my great patriotism, when she exclaimed, "_Well, all I have got to say is, that if I had been a man, I should have gone long ago_." The ice was pretty effectually broken now, and what I feared might prove a council of war, was turned into a council of peace. That speech settled the whole business for me, and I was ready, yea, anxious, to shoulder my musket and go "to the front" immediately; in fact, I wished I had gone before. Woman's work in the war! I fear it has not been fully appreciated or justly acknowledged. The patriotism, the heroism and the sacrifice were not confined to the soldiers. They knew little of the inexpressible longings, the fears, the prayers, the yearning hopes, the terrible suspense, of those at home who loved them. What pen can truthfully describe the weary watching and waiting of the wives and mothers, the daughters and sisters, during those long four years of fire and blood? G.o.d bless them, one and all!

Several weeks elapsed between the time of enlistment and going into camp.

At last we were ordered to report on Dexter Training Ground, in Providence, the name of the camp being "Camp Stevens," in honor of Major General Isaac Ingalls Stevens, who was killed September 1st, 1862, in the battle of Chantilly, Virginia, while leading his division in a charge. To very many of the members of the regiment, their first military experience began on Camp Stevens, and truthfulness to history compels me to add that with no small number of the enlisted men it ended there, they being unable to "pa.s.s muster," or, in other words, to endure the severe ordeal to which they were subjected by the chief mustering officer, Captain William Silvey, of the regular army. I had entertained fears from the start that I would be "thrown out" on account of a supposed pulmonary difficulty. I "braced up" as best I could for the examination. Captain Silvey looked me squarely in the face as I stood in line, and placing one of his hands upon my breast, he struck with the other a blow which seemed hard enough to fell an ox, and then remarked "All right!" I could not have been made more happy than I was by his decision if he had knocked me down. He settled one thing at any rate which had long been a disputed question in our family, namely, that my breathing apparatus was "all right."

After the examinations were concluded, the "lucky ones" were sworn in and marched down to the quartermaster's department to receive their equipments. The "pride, pomp and circ.u.mstance of glorious war" had never possessed any great charm for me. I had belonged to an engine company and a Sunday-school, but never to a military company; in fact, until I went on to Camp Stevens I do not remember ever to have had a musket in my hand.

This will serve to explain why, when all of the members of my company had been supplied with arms, the officer in command called attention to the fact that I had my gun wrong side before, my hand grasping the lock or hammer instead of the "guard." The suggestion that I should join the "awkward squad" was sufficiently exasperating to have almost induced me to throw up my commission.

But a still further humiliation was in store for me. At our first drill in the manual of arms, among the other orders given was, "ram cartridge,"

when the officer in charge discovered that I had inserted the wrong end of the ramrod into the muzzle of the gun, I having found the hollow s.p.a.ce in the large end very convenient in which to insert the ball of my little finger in sending the imaginary cartridge to its destination. Fortunately for me, no further opportunities for demonstrating my fitness for promotion in the "awkward squad" were furnished me, and my leisure hours were spent in acquiring proficiency in drill. How well I succeeded will appear.

While we were on Camp Stevens we had a great many visitors. Among those whom I shall ever remember was that "grand, square and upright" citizen of Pawtucket, Charley Chickering. It so happened that the day he visited us, I was performing guard duty around the camp. I noticed that my portly friend, as he paraded up and down the sidewalk opposite me, seemed deeply interested in my movements. Presently he came across the street and walked alongside of me awhile as I paced my beat back and forth. He was silent.

So was I. But at length that ominous chuckle of his began to be heard, or perhaps I should say a series of chuckles, which all who are acquainted with him so well know always precedes his quaint and original utterances.

I fancied that my martial air and my dexterity in handling my musket, although I knew it did bob around considerably when carried at "support,"

or perpendicularly, was to evoke from my old friend and schoolmate a compliment. But judge of my surprise when instead he opened upon me as follows, his every word being punctuated with one of those peculiar chuckles to which I have referred: "Nickerson,--I--admire--your-- patriotism,--but--I--swear--I--can't--compliment--you--on--your-- soldierly--bearing."

I confess that I experienced considerable difficulty in learning to keep step, but, like the raw Irish recruit, I stoutly maintained that the trouble was with "the other b'ys; they wouldn't kape step wid me."

CHAPTER II.

It was on the afternoon of the sixth of October, 1862, when we kissed our wives and sweethearts, and

"With our guns upon our shoulders, And our bayonets by our sides,"

left Camp Stevens for the seat of war. We were in anything but light marching order when we broke camp. To this day the remembrance of those back-breaking knapsacks makes me weary. Feminine ingenuity seemingly exhausted itself in conjuring up all sorts of things, describable and indescribable, that could make life a burden to a "raw recruit," a wheelbarrow being needed for their transportation. But the size of those knapsacks grew "beautifully less" shortly after leaving home, a blanket and overcoat being all that were absolutely needed in active service, and often one of these proved a burden rather than a necessity. In addition to clothing enough to have overstocked one of the numerous Palestine merchants on Chatham street, in New York, there were, among other things, family Bibles, pocket Testaments, prayer-books and dictionaries, Pilgrim's Progress, Old Farmer's Almanac, photograph and autograph alb.u.ms, ambrotypes and daguerreotypes, diaries, razors, mirrors of various sizes, boxes of blacking, b.u.t.ton-hooks, collars and cuffs, corkscrews, tooth powder, brushes for the hair, teeth and boots, whisk brooms, clothing and hat brushes, combs, shaving utensils, slippers, clothes-wringers, frying-pans and patent coffee-pots, soap, towels, napkins, pins, needles and thread, b.u.t.tons of various dimensions, boots and shoes, both thick and thin, hair oil and pomade, matches, pipes, tobacco, plug and fine cut, rolls of linen bandages and bundles of lint, Pain Killer, Jamaica ginger, Seidlitz powders, pills, cayenne pepper, and almost everything else but umbrellas. Then there were the equipments provided by the government,--haversack, canteen, cartridge box and sixty rounds of cartridges, not to mention the musket,--until our appearance resembled the pictures of the dromedaries crossing the Great Desert which I saw in the geography in my school days. When we embarked on the cars at Olneyville, bound for New York, and unslung those corpulent knapsacks, the sense of relief which we experienced was, I fancy, somewhat akin to that felt by Bunyan's pilgrim when he dropped his burden. Indeed, it seemed like getting out from under a haystack or a mountain.

From New York to Washington our trip possessed no features uncommon to other regiments. From Philadelphia to the National Capital we were transported in freight cars, a new experience to all of us, but one to which we became accustomed before we saw Rhode Island again. It was at Perryville, Maryland, that we had our first glimpse of the devastation wrought by war. Here the extensive bridge across the Susquehanna had been burned by the enemy, and we were transferred in detachments across the river to Havre de Grace in a small steamer. We arrived in Washington about ten o'clock on one of the most beautiful moonlight nights I ever saw. Our arrival was expected by some of our friends who had enlisted earlier than ourselves, and they were at the railroad station to welcome us.

Immediately upon landing from the cars we were marched to the "Soldiers'

Retreat" for refreshments. No soldier who has frequented that place needs to be told that we beat a hasty retreat therefrom. I am very confident that the most of the men would gladly have taken the next train back to Rhode Island, if the matter of return tickets had not been entirely overlooked by the master of transportation.

How marked the contrast between our reception in Washington and in Philadelphia! Even to this day pleasant memories remain of the hospitality dispensed to our regiment by the patriotic ladies of the "City of Brotherly Love," at the famous "Cooper Shop Volunteer Refreshment Saloon,"

a hospitality which was extended to all of the "boys in blue" who pa.s.sed through Philadelphia on their way to the National Capital.

Fancy our feelings when we were informed that our first night in Washington must be spent in this same unsavory "Soldiers' Retreat." Acting upon the maxim that "what cannot be cured must be endured," and in unquestioned obedience to orders, we spread our blankets upon the hard, dirty floor, and taking our huge knapsacks for pillows we wrapped our mantles (poetry for army overcoats) about us and laid down to pleasant dreams of home, and feather beds, and hair mattresses, and other comforts and luxuries to which we had been so long accustomed as to have wholly failed to appreciate them at their proper value. Truly in our case, distance lent enchantment. But to come down to solid, matter-of-fact prose, we didn't sleep much that night anyway. Whether it was the effects of the heat of the preceding day when we were marching through Baltimore at a "double quick," with those burdensome knapsacks breaking our backs, or whether it was the souvenirs left by our comrades-in-arms who had occupied that same floor the previous night, I cannot positively affirm, but this one thing I know, that we _scratched_ out a miserable existence until morning, when, after declining without thanks to regale ourselves with the so-called coffee which was furnished us, which our boys affirmed was poor water spoilt, and the turning of the cold shoulder upon the salt junk which was so temptingly spread before us, we cheerfully obeyed the order of our Colonel to "fall in," and were soon wending our way to East Capitol hill, near the east branch of the Potomac, where, our tents not having arrived, we encamped in the open air, which was far preferable to spending a second night at the "Soldiers' Retreat." The soil where we encamped was of a clayey nature, and the surface as free from moisture as polishing powder, and when we awoke on the following morning we had very much the appearance of having slept in an ash-pit.

We remained here but a day or two, when we received orders to join General Casey's Division, and bidding adieu without regrets to "Camp Misery," as our boys had named the spot, we were soon on our way across Chain Bridge, and in due season found ourselves on the "sacred soil" of Virginia.

I can never forget a laughable scene which was enacted on Pennsylvania avenue by Company B while on this march. We were on the extreme left of the line. In front of a tonsorial saloon on the avenue our boys espied a Dutchman who formerly carried on business in Pawtucket. The surprise at the unexpected meeting was mutual on the part of the barber and the boys.

It was his habit when a customer entered his shop to inquire as to whether he preferred the water hot or cold, but for any one to repeat the question in his presence, whether on the street or elsewhere, was sure to stir up the barber's ire. Immediately upon seeing him standing in front of his shop, our boys began to sing out, "Vater hot, or vater cold?" The old Dutchman became terribly excited, and the result was that that portion of the procession which was composed of Company B became sadly demoralized.

As soon as our officers took in the situation, order was at once restored, and a few minutes of "double quick" enabled us to regain our position in line. But no sooner had this been done than we saw coming directly toward us, down the avenue, a regiment which had the appearance of having just come from "the front." It was a new and strange sight to us, those "battle-scarred veterans" of the war, and we made up our minds that the right thing for us to do was to tender them a reception. Without any orders from our officers, and without even their knowledge, we immediately came to "company front" and presented arms, to the great amus.e.m.e.nt and evident astonishment of those old soldiers. This action on our part caused us to receive a well-merited reprimand from our officers, and it was the first and only performance of the kind in which Company B bore a conspicuous part.

CHAPTER III.

Of the movements of the Eleventh regiment while in Virginia, I will not weary you with a rehearsal in detail. Our first regular camp was established on Miner's Hill, the extreme outer part of the defenses of Washington, and when we reached it on a cold, raw, bl.u.s.tering day late in the fall of 1862, the wind filling our eyes and mouths with a blinding and grinding dust, it was the most dismal and dreary-looking place that I ever saw--with the single exception of Seekonk Plains. We remained here about three months, building and stockading our winter quarters, drilling and doing picket duty, and making occasional raids when we felt sure that the enemy was a safe distance from us. We were in General Robert Cowdin's brigade, which comprised, in addition to our own regiment, the Fortieth Ma.s.sachusetts, the Twenty-second Connecticut, the One Hundred and Forty-first New York, and the Sixteenth Virginia Battery.

Company B had a fund of one thousand dollars which was raised by the patriotic citizens of Pawtucket and Central Falls for the purpose of enabling the officers to procure for the members of the company, among other things, some articles for the table when we were in camp which were not to be found on the government "bill of fare." In consequence of this "company fund" we had a greater share of "extras" than any other company in the regiment while we were encamped in the vicinity of Washington.

Among those "extras" were milk for our coffee and tea (fresh when it could be obtained, and condensed at other times); writing paper, envelopes and stamps; a copy of the Washington "Daily Chronicle" for each mess, and a weekly pictorial paper; blacking, oil, sand paper, emery paper, polishing powder, soap, matches, green apples, tallow candles and other delicacies of the season. The extra candles were used on special occasions, such as the reception of friends from home, and so forth. Naturally enough the members of the other companies looked upon us at times with envious eyes.

The historian of the regiment writes thus of Company B: "Their company fund was large, their friends with money many, and their visitors, who always remembered them handsomely, numerous." We did, indeed, have quite a number of visitors from home while we were encamped near Washington, and I can a.s.sure you that their visits were always occasions of great pleasure to us. Later they became like angels' visits, "few and far between."