XLIX
A MAIL is going out, I am told, at three o’clock, and it is nearly that time now. We left our old camp, with all its really delightful associations, the day after I last wrote you, and were on the steamer two days and two nights before she cast off from the pier. When we got to Point Lookout, at the mouth of the river, a wild gale was blowing, and it was not considered prudent to proceed down Chesapeake Bay, the “South America” being a crazy old river boat, and overloaded. So we ran in and tied up at the wharf, and almost everybody went ashore. It was a seaside summer resort, out of season, and we took possession. We made ourselves very comfortable in the cottages. There were good fireplaces and plenty of wood, and though it rained great guns, and the gale howled most of the time, we were dry and warm, and made ourselves very comfortable there for three days. But we came pretty near starving before a boat got down from Washington bringing us something to eat. The boys gave it a very appropriate name—“Camp Starvation.”
When we got away we went straight to Fortress Monroe. We got there in the morning, just as the rebel ironclad “Merrimack” came out from Norfolk. The harbor was cleared of shipping in double-quick time, the “Monitor” and other war vessels moved up, and we thought there was going to be another big naval battle. But there wasn’t; and the old “South America” pulled out and ran up to the York river.
There is now a tremendous army before Yorktown, as well as in it, and there will be a great battle. We have got the largest train of siege artillery ever brought together, and they have got some very strong forts and batteries. Our guns will be in position and open on the rebels before this letter reaches you. There is skirmishing every day. Berdan’s sharpshooters are making themselves the terror of the rebels. They have some wonderful marksmen, and firing from little pits dug well out towards the rebel works, they make it mighty interesting for the rebel gunners. In some of the rebel batteries it is as much as a man’s life is worth to attempt to load the guns. The instant he shows himself near the muzzle one of Berdan’s men gets him. Some of them use telescope rifles. At some points the rebels put up planks to screen themselves while working the guns. I was a little acquainted with one of the Sharpshooters who was killed a few days ago—John Ide of Company E—a New Hampshire man from Claremont.