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

Chapter 26: XXIII

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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.

XXIII

Camp Union,

Bladensburg, Md., Sept. 22, 1861.

LAST Wednesday I went down to the Third Regiment and saw lots and lots of the old crowd. Roger Woodbury had not come on yet from Long Island. I met Frank Morrill, Jack Holmes, Ruthven Houghton, and many others. Frank and I had such a good long talk over the happy old times. The regiment is camped about three miles from here, and the men are worrying for fear they may be ordered back to Long Island.

So you think, do you, it would be a good plan to go down to the city once in a while for something good to eat. Why, bless you, we don’t have to do that now. We have sutlers here, and hucksters out from the city, and farmers with their truck, and can buy most anything we want to piece out the army rations, from sweet potatoes to pound cake.