A Minor War History Compiled from a Soldier Boy's Letters to "the Girl I Left Behind Me": 1861-1864

Chapter 24: XXI

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About This Book

A series of wartime letters written between 1861 and 1864 to a loved one presents an intimate account of camp routine, marches, garrison duty, and occasional skirmishes, emphasizing comradeship, small talk, humor, and the routine hardships of soldiers. The editor removed strictly personal matters and arranged the correspondence into sketches that preserve individual personalities and camp anecdotes, recording everyday details—meals, guard duty, uniforms, morale—rather than grand strategy, and offering a ground-level portrait of military life and memory.

XXI

Camp Union,

Bladensburg, Md., Sept. 4, 1861.

ORDERS came tonight to pack and be ready to march at a minute’s notice with two days’ cooked rations. I learn from headquarters that we are going over into Virginia again. We want a chance to try the Southern Chivalry on again, and I guess we will have it before long. We hear there was a scrimmage over there today, and our troops took possession of Munson’s Hill, which the rebels had fortified. It is after ten o’clock at night. “Taps” beat an hour ago, and I must close. Perhaps in my next letter I will tell of a battle, and if I do, it will be a battle won.