Winter of '64 - The review and thanks...

[JustRob]

Re: Winter of '64 - The review and thanks...

Between Corporal Jonah and Sergeant Moustache, I'm proud to say I had a hand in at least two nicknames for the weekend.

That sort of thing happens when forced to learn new names for folks you already know.

I did not, however, have a hand in nicknaming Hank Trent, Blinky. The boys in the Pine Cottage who drew Guard duty the first morning and had to contend with him get credit for that one.

[nycraig28]

Re: Winter of '64 - The review and thanks...

Talk about your temp. difference between bunks, ask Sgt. Major Schotz.
One minute I heard " Craig, the fire's out ", The next comment I heard was
" no more wood ". Geez, make up your mind, Schotzy ! Glad you all had a
good time.

Regards,
Craig Schaeffer 151st NYVI
aka... Qm. Sgt. Charles Wall

[Kevin O'Beirne]

Re: Winter of '64 - The review and thanks...

For the past week and a half, particularly at night, I am deeply aware of and grateful for:

1. My home maintaining a constant, comfortable temperature without constant labor to feed the furnace.

2. A nice, soft bed.

3. No snoring. :)

Ah, the stuff we normally take for granted...

[GrumpyDave]

Re: Winter of '64 - The review and thanks...

1. My home maintaining a constant, comfortable temperature without constant labor to feed the furnace.

What! that wood stove worked just fine. LOL Breathing when you are sleeping is important.

2. A nice, soft bed.
Ok, maybe some more straw.

3. No snoring.
There was a professional in the Officers Quarters. He had both duration and volume.

[Kevin O'Beirne]

Re: Winter of '64 - The review and thanks...

snoring.
There was a professional in the Officers Quarters. He had both duration and volume.

The professionals were Lt. Jewell and Lt. Sanders. Others were amateur snorers compared to those two. Jewell's buzzsaw was right below me at W64.

[GrumpyDave]

Re: Winter of '64 - The review and thanks...

Winter of 64 participants should check the yahoo group for some important information! Kiev, PM me.

[Horace]

Re: Winter of '64 - The review and thanks...

I kept a diary during the event on loose sheets of paper. It was so smeared and stained by the end that I had to transcribe it like an actual artifact. It took a little while.
Nothing in these entries is embellished, except references to situations effecting the 151st New York that didn’t actually occur in our camp. Even these extensions of the scenario felt tangible while writing them. I didn’t fake anything in the entries because I didn’t have to.
We assumed the identities of actual members of the 151st -to a degree -as a research and immersion tool. It was also to honor and echo them, to have their names spoken aloud again. Of my three hut mates -the real ones -two of them were dead by June of 1864.
I thank the organizers of this event for their untold efforts in building the camp and creating the complex web of life in winter quarters that the rest of us were able to breathe life into.

Feb. 18th, 1864
First night back from furlough. It’s about 10 degrees. Hut’s warm enough with the fire. We now occupy an old reb camp in fairly good condition. Drew straw. Hoisted it on to a tree limb and weighed it. The kid guarding it took his job a little too seriously. Wouldn’t let us take extra. It’s straw for the love of God.
Fell on the ice twice carrying straw. Lost a wrister that was in my pocket.
Somewhere in camp someone’s playing a penny whistle. It offsets the fifers toodling that army noise.
The wind swells and wishes through the trees. It tries to make our roof flap. Put another log on the fire. Outside: crunching footsteps, laughing, yelling, coughing.
Griswold’s snoring lightly in the bunk. Boots is on guard. Eggenweiler’s not here. I’m alone by the fire.
Earlier today 1st Sgt. Gritman entered the hut, crouched on the floor with his little notebook and asked “Who wants to go on guard tomorrow?” I made the mistake of being the one looking at him when he asked. “You do.” he said. I’ll be there all day tomorrow, I imagine.

Feb. 19th, 1864
Guard duty as of 9:00 A.M. Eight men in a 12’ x 12’ commandeered tool shed with some bunks nailed into the walls, except during guard relief when there are twelve of us in here churning around until the next four filter out into the snow.
Later now. By a miracle I was relieved of “an hour on and two off” ‘til 9:00 A.M. tomorrow. I’m back in our hut, where I’ve witnessed another miracle in the form of a box from home. I knew what alot of it would be since I helped to assemble it back in Royalton. There were warm clothes and most importantly food of a citizen nature to offset the army slop, as well as all the little things that make it worth the wait. Mail came, but nothing for me.
Improvements are being innovated around our quarters -shelves, door latch & c. One fellow hammers while the other three of us hold the whole hut.
Geese flying overhead so close that Eggenwiler wondered if we might hit one with a rock and cook it.
Can’t find my wrister. Griswold has a theory that as I lost it drawing straw, it probably fell into the pile and is now in someone’s mattress tick. We checked his tick and mine. That narrows it to about 70 others...
The regiment had parade today. We were read a letter sent to the regiment from a judge back home about our “victory” at Mine Run. He should have been there. He wouldn’t have bothered to write.
On guard, you spend two hours in the guard shack getting just comfortable enough to be rousted out into the snow for an hour, then back to into the shack for two, then back out again. While out there for the hour I just think of things to think about, then I wait to think about them while I try to think about something else. Eventually I’ve forgotten about the first thing I thought of to think about, so I try to remember what it was. This eventually puts me in a trance. After a while I see the corporal of the guard coming, and that gives me something to do. At Mine Run, guard corporals found sentries frozen to death out there, though none from our reg’t. They shortened the time on sentry to 1/2 hour after that. Whoever requested to take my place on guard detail must have had an angle on some sort of racket going on in there. I can’t see any other reason.
I’ve found that stoking the stove in the guard shack is an opportunity for any number of comments regarding sisters, sweethearts, & c. “It’s too long to go in.” & c.
The officer of the day approached one of the sentries when he was out today, asked him if his weapon was clean, then asked to inspect it. The sentry handed him his rifle. This was bad. It was a trick, of course. Another sentry was tricked on the same shift this way. It was taken seriously. We, the rest of the guard, were ordered out of the shack while the sergeant blew them up for about five minutes. He said it was a capitol crime in the army, technically -all very dramatic. The first sentry who’d been tricked argued vehemently that the regulations say that you are supposed to hand your weapon only to the officer of the day & c. He was probably right but that, of course, only made it worse. No one was held for trial, the “offenders” had to stand sentry an extra hour, and things quieted down. We are often squeezed between two or three rules which contradict each other, and the devil take the hindmost. I honestly think the whole goal is to keep us confused.
It’s late now, after taps. Everyone in the hut is asleep but me. I’m writing on the lid of my box, keeping a candle lit so I can see the words, but I have it next to the fire so I can blow it out quickly and appear to have been asleep if an officer should knock. Occasionally I hear someone crunching around outside, hoping they don’t come knocking on our door. It’s not likely to be a welcome visitor at this hour. I try not to move as I write, the shadows will give me away to those prowling owl provosts.
At night, when one is walking the company streets (or sliding down them at this season) all sorts of crazy elongated shadows dance through the glowing canvas roofs of the huts. It’s a weird and beautiful sight.
I like Captain Bowen, the battalion commander -in part because we rarely see him around. Early in the war the officers mixed with us frequently -not anymore.
We have managed to steal and hide enough firewood, far more than the ration. Griswold, the recruit, was first from our mess to arrive and started bringing it to the hut without knowing there was a ration and somehow he wasn’t stopped. Most everyone was returning from “ship over” furloughs, so the camp was in confusion. I guess that there was no guard on the wood for a while. Griswold just went whistling along to the pile and back with load after load. About two minutes after we’d hidden all the extra wood under our bunk and disguised it, I was in here alone when hut inspectors came through. I tried distracting them with conversation. I was gong to offer them biscuits from my box from home but remembered that it was also under the bunk, in front of the wood. They looked at the pile in the corner and asked if we’d received our wood ration yet. I looked grim and said that we hadn’t. They said we’d get one. We didn’t. We’re better off than others who did. C’est la guerre.
One part of you is always cold, and another too hot when you’re near a fire in February around Brandy Station. With feet -the most important item- I can feel the warm and the cold in them moving around like air bubbles as I try to get both of them warm at the same time.
Most of our wood is pine, but we have some nice square cut chunks of oak to throw in when we are sleeping. It burns much better and makes better coals. It also probably means that someone else around here had their house torn apart.
I hear banging and creaking outside. It occurs to me that we should wear blankets over our heads if we sit up at night. It would obscure our profiles from the outside. We should try an experiment and send someone out after dark to see how we can disguise our features from the provosts. A pine bough shebang over the canvas would be a good idea. There’s a big stack of it near the woodpile. I’ll mention it to the boys tomorrow.
The geese pass over the camp so low that it seems, when you are inside of the hut, that you could climb on top of it and catch one as they fly by. They are not unlike us: blindly and cheerfully moving forward in formations, making a monotonous but compelling noise; suddenly passing by, then forgotten. Some of them even get shot, but I’ll lay that their odds are better than ours. Of course, the geese mean that Spring is coming. Soon we will move too. It will go from very cold to very hot. No one but us really knows what we do while we wait or when we march. It’s hard to explain to anyone else, and even we forget quickly.

Feb. 20th, 1864
For the second day now, I’m not on the rolls. It looks like when I got out of guard duty I was lost in the books. The longer I wait to tell the 1st Sgt., the more explaining I’ll have to do. I’ve decided to wait until after fatigue duty to mention it to him. All the “B”s are there now (except me)...if our company had fallen in (for roll call) with muskets they’d know I wasn’t on the rolls (due to anyone not having been called still being at shoulder arms at the end of roll call), but we didn’t so they don’t.
Wrister still missing. There was a completely worn out pair of socks in the hut when we occupied it. I meant to set them aside to cut into a new pair of wrist warmers, but the boys had already sent them to the laundresses to repair, as a joke. I will go see them when I have time, ask them to just make them into wristers. They should be relieved.
I just passed the musicians out in the street. I asked them what they were about to call. They said “Church”, so I had advance warning. I guess it must be Sunday. I told Boots. He’d heard that those not going to church had to be read the Articles of War. I could hear various ruses being concocted in the streets: “My minister told me I wasn’t allowed to attend the services of other denominations, sergeant.” & c. and so it was off to the Articles of War for them.
Boots had said he was going to the Catholic service, but he’s not Catholic. I said “Well, it is the one true religion.” “I thought we’d agreed that it was the Jews.” -I had argued the other night that all Christians are Jews if they all worship one -I thought for a second. “No, they’re the chosen people.” Either way, off he went. I think I’m somewhere between Episcopal and Communist. I hear that Tate over in Co. K is one of the latter. I’ve been meaning to ask him about it when no one’s around. I happened to be in the front corner of the hut when the door opened, the sergeant looked in, didn’t see me and shut the door again. No Articles of War for me. I don’t even know if anyone had to listen to them. I just know I wasn’t there.
I call Boots “Richmond”. He calls me “C.T.”, short for “On To Richmond” and “United States Colored Troops” respectively -a long story for later. I must be brief from here as we are ready to move in an hour. We called each other “Sinks” and “Ma’am” for a bit -yet another story. Suffice it to say that neither of us wanted to be stuck with either of those last two names so we agreed on the other ones before it was too late.
The musicians are larcenous scamps, just for the record.

Feb. 21st, 1864
Too exhausted to write last night. Marched out to picket, met reb pickets at a frozen stream. No shots fired. A little trading. They wanted food. We traded newspapers and essence of coffee for tobacco. Our feet kept freezing to the ground. We expected to be out there all night but a rumor that we would return at about 10:30 P.M. proved to be true. I became lost returning late at night with the detail. They couldn’t wake me for breakfast, brought me an extra ration of bread from the cookhouse. It was excellent soft bread they were serving all day. The rest of the day’s meals consisted of what they usually do: some form of liquid with lumps in it. It comes in three basic variations: grey, brown and green, with grey probably being the most common. Occasionally you can make out some cabbage.
I was determined to get more of that bread, so I bundled up in my great coat, wrapped a scarf around my face, moved through the food line, then went back as myself, saying I didn’t want any of the grey soup and could I please have two rations of bread. I managed three extra bread rations in toto, which was delightful with butter and jam from home.
Today I was sent out on a foraging detail. I suppose Mosby has gotten at the cracker line again. We halted at a house about 2 miles away. Civilians’ papers were in order, but one of them was almost arrested anyway for persistent complaints and chin music. There were also a displeased matron and some sort of idiot who kept cranking on a rattle. The lady of the house announced that she had signed the Overland Compact when we were all still getting off the boat. I don’t know what the Overland Compact is, but any sympathy I had for her evaporated with that comment. We found 1/2 a pig in the smokehouse, left geese and rabbits. We felt we should have done it the other way around as far as carrying weight. We also took part of their potatoes, carrots and some onions. On the march back, I heard a man behind me saying that he felt bad about taking the food. Another said he felt bad when he was hungry.
I rec’d a letter from my cousin -absolutely filthy and obscene. He sent me a religious pamphlet with French pictures pasted into some of the pages. I like the pictures well enough, but the detailed descriptions of his exploits with the local tricks was deranged. He is obsessed with someone named “Skinny Annie”.
Still trying to get the laundresses to give those old socks back. The head laundress is famous for her knitting and darning skills, which is a problem. She’s too good at knitting to just hand them over unfinished. I would have sorted out those old socks in thirty seconds with a pen knife.
Peeled potatoes with some of the boys -fine Irish singing. There was one plaintive song -the verses were about how a pint of Nelson’s blood wouldn’t do us any harm, then a little dram of gin wouldn’t do us any harm & c. The chorus was something about a rolling chariot, and how “we’ll all hang on behind.”
Wood detail came.
Just witnessed a grappling & pugilism match -a powerful experience. Cpls. LaRoche and Long of our company were the opponents. There have been a couple of pools going on it. To me, Long was more the “thrower” and LaRoche the “puncher”. It seemed clear that Long was going to win, but LaRoche managed to get in a series of kidney punches that sent Long reeling in the end.
There is a rumor that we are being sent into Brandy Station to guard wagons. We go where we are told and never know where or when.
About 8:30 o’clock now. I’m alone in the hut again. No one knows who will be in here at any time. Sometimes I open the door and there are six people, sometimes it’s empty. The boys next door have among them a fellow who can play a penny whistle really well. There are lots of songs coming from that hut, sung by all present.
We had parade today. Somehow I didn’t know about it. Either I didn’t hear the order at roll call or they knocked on the company huts and missed ours. I had five minutes to get into light marching order and jump to the end of the column as it moved to the parade ground.
Orders were read at parade that we will march tomorrow to yet another parade and review for Gen’ls French and Meade. This will mean a long and tedious day. We will stand for hours until the big bugs decide to prance by and then we’ll stand some more. Floating from the hut next door I hear
“Always remember the longer you live
the sooner you’ll bloody well die.”

Feb. 22nd, 1864
The fire went out during the night. I awoke frozen through. It couldn’t have been more than 20 degrees in here. I found a match, some heart pine, candle wax, and prayed as I built the fire up a little at a time. Griswold awoke and started splitting kindling on the hut floor. It took a while for any heat to be felt. I am finally warm enough to hold a pencil. The musicians aren’t even up yet.
Wristers still not finished. I would believe the rumors that the laundresses are Copperheads if the lady repairing them had not lent me her own knit sleeves until mine were finished, when I last visited. One of them seemed to take pity on me, gave me a hunk of soap they had just made. I have now also lost my cotton gloves. Embarrassing and dangerous.
Last night we were treated to a sort of traveling saloon and gambling enterprize. They seem to set up with official sanction, get the boys drunk, take their money at faro or something like it, and then they’re gone in the morning.
The hut next door was later jammed full of soakers bellowing songs and making pronouncements. I had to slip in to see what it was about. There was barely room to move. The songs kept coming, accompanied by slide whistle, bones and people just generally banging on things. It was sublime.
I hear that someone fell in the sinks drunk last night. Eggenwiler and Griswold sat up after we left the “Vesuvius Lodge” next door (inspired by it’s being an old Sibley tent and, I suppose, its frequent eruptions) and, in a whisper, debated the more precise points of drill in very imprecise states of mind, due to about 8 different bottles being passed around during the night. I went to sleep.
Later. We are packing for the Grand Review Hogswaddle for Blinky French and Snapper George. There was a hunk of that soft bread left laying on the bunk. I took a big bite and realized that it was, in fact, the soap the laundress had given me. I am packing everything I can bear to carry for warmth and food as the hut will likely be gone through while we are away, and there’s no telling when we will return.

[Rob Murray]

Re: Winter of '64 - The review and thanks...

Berry,
Or Todd, whatever your name is:D Now you've gone and made me homesick. That is one of the best first person AARs' I have ever read. Took me right back to our "Emporium of Oddities". I felt like we had never marched off to Grand Guard.

Griswold and I were really discussing the "finer points of drill"? If that's the case, I need to get out more. We should have been talking about "Skinny Annie".

Proud to have portrayed
2nd Serg't. Conrad H. Eggenwiler
aka Serg't. Mustache

[Charles Heath]

Re: Winter of '64 - The review and thanks...

Todd,

Excellent AAR! Best I've read in many years!

Hey, if only those old socks turned wristers could talk. Rumor has it you were one of the fellows who finally figured out the goodies in the trash pile (knapsack, shoes, cans, boilers, battered coffee pot, etc.) in addition to the scrap harness and collars were for you folks to use and take home if you wished. Good!

[Kevin O'Beirne]

Re: Winter of '64 - The review and thanks...

Todd,

Great stuff, and with a good narrative style and period terms. Good job! I laughed out loud at this part,

I like Captain Bowen, the battalion commander -in part because we rarely see him around.

[Coatsy]

Re: Winter of '64 - The review and thanks...

Heef,

Out of the trash bit by the Sgt. Major's tent the OCN snagged most of the boxes (to appease Vesuvius), two bottles that when cleaned out were in darn good condition, and two boilers. One man's trash is the another's gold mine.

I tried to get some good straps from the leather pile, but they were not what I was looking for. Oh well.

[Spinster]

Re: Winter of '64 - The review and thanks...

There were also a displeased matron and some sort of idiot who kept cranking on a rattle. The lady of the house announced that she had signed the Overland Compact when we were all still getting off the boat. I don’t know what the Overland Compact is, but any sympathy I had for her evaporated with that comment. .

Sparky said that was likely THE most obscure thing he'd heard in awhile. :D

And while Mrs. Jools could not have legally signed said compact, she sure could claim that her father had done so, and thus that her family were "First Signers".

The Overmountain Compact, also known as the Wautauga Compact, was signed in 1772, some four years before the Declaration of Independence, and declared a particular section of the high Appalachians to be independant of the British Crown.

A separate government was formed, at a site near modern day Elizabethton, Tennessee. While the document itself does not survive, it included provisions for judges, a sheriff, and a clerk of court.

Later many of these same freemen "Overmountain Men" would muster in and march to Kings Mountain, soundly defeating the British in one of the pivotal battles of the Revolution.

A little known byway of history today--yet one that would have generated much pride of heritage during our period. As for who got off the boat when----lawsy, its a good thing I didn't pull out the ancestor who came over on the second Jamestown 'wife ship'. :D

[Johnny Lloyd]

Re: Winter of '64 - The review and thanks...

Out of the trash bit by the Sgt. Major's tent the OCN snagged most of the boxes (to appease Vesuvius), two bottles that when cleaned out were in darn good condition, and two boilers. One man's trash is the another's gold mine.

I tried to get some good straps from the leather pile, but they were not what I was looking for. Oh well.

Herbus Maximus of Vesuvius:

I got a darn good pipe bowl from that same trash pile at Mr. Heath's suggestion to raid it for one after my original pipe broke.

Was that trash pile there just for raiding? Pretty realistic, as we reused 95% of everything (even trash sometimes) in the recent war to "fight the bedouins in the hot deserts of Arabia".

Thanks- Johnny Lloyd

[Kiev Thomason]

Re: Winter of '64 - The review and thanks...

Herbus Maximus of Vesuvius:

I got a darn good pipe bowl from that same trash pile at Mr. Heath's suggestion to raid it for one after my original pipe broke.

Was that trash pile there just for raiding? Pretty realistic, as we reused 95% of everything (even trash sometimes) in the recent war to "fight the bedouins in the hot deserts of Arabia".

Thanks- Johnny Lloyd

I got a few buckels and some hardware from the pile .I am gonna clean them and make a W64 waistbelt for myself.I thought the trash piles were a great touch that we overlook in most garrison events.The AARs have been great I just had a ball up there.Thanks to all who helped the chariot along..so to speak.I think that I will have really hard time ever topping W64 as far as camp style events go.The friendships made and the small moments were a plenty.My favorite time the whole event was chopping up the food and singing in the company street.I have not sang Nelson's Blood in ten years...what a great tune.

Once again thanks everyone who worked so hard to make this event go!

[Charles Heath]

Re: Winter of '64 - The review and thanks...

Johnny & Kiev,

The trash piles were Sparky's idea, and he started working on that notion before the end of Winter 1864 in 2006. One of the items in the trash pile by Sgt. Major Miserable's hut would have been quite familiar to sutler Erasmus Hopkins. Matter of fact, I paused for a moment to hear any possible echo of profanity emerge from that vinegar jug, but it was silent. They probably needed more tin cans, but then we get into that whole tin can debate. At least one period can was in the trash pile thrown over the old freight wagon axle located just uphill from the sinks. The potential for creativity was huge.

The camp was "salted" with a number of items, and the pipe bowls were a fun thing some of the boys found, and some did not. The bowls date from the mid-20th century, and are nice Pamplin Clays. The are not glazed, and I do believe they are actually seconds. More about that type of pipe bowl can be found here:

Pamplin Pipes

Excellent reeds were readily available just downhill from the brush arbor where the boxing match and the traveling saloon were located. At least three of the huts had wire for reaming out the reeds, and some fine hemp twine (almost thread) was located thereabouts. Honey for breaking in the bowls could be had with a bit of trading.

Each hut was rich in something. Each hut was poor in something. Trading was possible. The secret compartment in Vesuvius was to the immediate left of the doorway. It was not opened until after the event.