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August 1st, 1862
Company is stopped in a field. Dark as Erebus. Fireflies flaring green out in the forest. Spots of foxfire a steady green glow. Voices drifting through the dark. Trying to build a small fire for coffee w. rotten wood. It doesn’t go well so far. Animals quiet. Heat and humidity at 9:00 PM are a challenge. Daddy longlegs half the size of my hand keep crawling out of the wood I’m trying to light and across my groundcloth. 17 year cicadas making a huge racket.
No moon. Can’t see a thing 3 feet from the fire. No moon tomorrow either of course. Hooray for the planning department. Kentucky had better be glad to see us. Of course Kentucky can do what it wants, but I hope we push out the yankees and inspire the Kentuckians to join us.
Bobo, while playing blackjack with me, said “We got to deal these damn cards better.”
August 2nd, 1862
At assembly last evening I just did not care a straw. It was much too hot for military deportment. Sgt. Hicks sets a fine example but it did not take.
This morning we rec’d 2 days rations. Bread (soft), meat pie & fruit pie. I don’t know if the singular of “fruit” is “fruits” but if so, these are “fruit” pies: mostly half baked bread with some small dab of some sort of a fruit in the center. These ought to keep me stopped up good for a while.
Sat up late last night with Bobo and Gerry, the ox teamster, hearing about his adventures on the Santa Fe Trail and in the Mexican War, hauling freight all the while, and some of the bits of knowledge and tricks he has picked up along the way. He is a rough man, but smart and philosophical. It was 1:30 AM when I closed my eyes. I’m watching him hitch up his team now. “Gee! Gee! Haw! Up! Whoah! Charles and James! Two steps back. One. Two. Good! Gee. Gee. Whoah. Charles! You stop thinking right now.”
Stepped off w/o ceremony. I was assigned to the advance guard. Not having been there before, the whole section quickly learned that there is a unique form of distress which quickly occurs when one is walking in front of a mule team and a 2000 pound wagon. We were to keep 50 yards in front, but the lead driver seems not to have received the order and the mules were thundering on our heels. This arrangement is a wonderful elixir for fatigue on the march.
I had planned to do some sewing and reading when we stopped for nooning, but all I did was sleeping.
After mid day we hit two different places where tongues of boulder rock were sticking out of the ground on rises in the road which needed to be graded. Out came axes and shovels, and away we swung in the heat. We spelled each other and dug and filled for a season. When the last wagon passed we picked up our traps to find the haversacks crawling w. ants that had found the fruit pies. Sgt. Berezuk opined cheerfully “It’s not so bad. They’re small. They don’t eat much.” When we unstacked muskets the barrels were almost too hot to touch, from setting in the sun. Some ladies have joined the train and seem to be associating with the teamsters. They are a curiosity. We encountered the second spot in the road that needed grading. It was on a hill. We shoveled, chopped and sweated till the road was passable. I accidentally hit Jay in the side of the face with a shovelful of dirt. The first team up the hill faltered. One of the mules lost its traction and fell to its front knees. They were now stuck on the incline. Another team was unhitched, brought forward and hitched to the first with a long chain. Then “Pull! Hyup! Hyup! Pull!” The chains flailed, there was a shock of wood and metal slamming together, harnesses rattled as the mules pulled and strained mightily. Nothing. We unloaded the wagon. Finally up she went. Oh - not quite - the front right wheel was hung up on a small tree. Now she’s out. That’s ONE wagon.
The hill turned into an operation that took all afternoon. By evening half the wagons were up and the other half waiting on the other side of a small creek. We made camp in the forest. The wagons seem to be strung out all along the road. The animals had to be walked a mile to water. I guess the little stream at the base of the hill was too small.
I have been in a bit of a foul mood. Can’t find anything. What I can find seems to be broken.
Aug. 4 [3rd], 1862
Kicked awake at 4:30 AM for fire watch. Jay tells me he was awakened around midnight for fire watch and was so confused he thought he was supposed to go on picket and started to put on his traps.
I washed my shirt in the creek last night and put on the spare. There just aren’t any branches on these trees low enough to hang a wet shirt on, and the humidity just plain gets things wet and keeps them that way.
I can hear teams going by on the road on the way to being hitched. The oxen make a thudding noise, the bells around their necks sounding like sleigh bells made of lead. The mules and horses are more of a prancing jingle. When they’re all hitched and moving it’s a bang thud bang bang thud. The hooves collectively sound most like a powerful waterfall.
This morning we were sweating before the sun came up. The breeze will blow and start to cool us off and, without fail, stops again 15 seconds later. Michael Schaffner said “I know I got some sleep last night because I kept waking up in agony.” Waiting for the teams to be hitched gave us time to get our traps arranged. Did more road grading. Brought the rest of the wagons up the hill. Where the mules had fought and failed, the oxen just walked up it like it was nothing. One of the oxen went to its knees at the same spot one of the mules had, but just went back up on its shanks with the same nonchalance as swishing a horse fly off its back. They hauled the heaviest wagon in the train up that hill completely loaded and didn’t stop for anything.
Nooning now. We followed the train through some pine lots on a dusty road and found it stopped and the animals grazing. We’re in those same pines. The heat is bad but we seem to be bearing up. Bobo’s tending to Silas’s blister next to me. Reread my letter from S. It’s a beauty. I started a response.
Later. We’ve stopped early as the animals are dangerously jaded. I’m not sure what all the train is hauling, but someone up ahead is bound not to receive what they’re expecting on time.
Speaking of whatever it is we’re hauling there was just quite a little dust up regarding a transaction the orderly sgt. made with the teamsters for coffee for the co. Apparently Hank, one of the swampers, claimed the sgt. gammoned him $1.50 for it and he came over to our camp complaining about it. The s’gt didn’t suffer that. There was an argument which this wagoner was bound to lose. Swamper Hank was walked [back] over to his rig at musket point. There was a further argument and the entire company, which was just then busy doing nothing, was ordered “Under arms!” and assembled on the road in various states of readiness. We were ordered to fix and charge bayonets and advanced on the teamsters. I looked beyond the points of our bayonets and saw teamsters backing away, ladies running and hiding their faces with their hats. I looked to my right and saw Mike Schaffner advancing with the line, with a look of steely determination, wearing only his bottom drawers and a pair of brogans. The swamper was captured and brought in front of the major while the company watched. It had all gotten pretty ridiculous by now.
Company A had seen the elephant, repulsing a handful of mule whackers and women, and meanwhile the supplies for the army sit here while we squabble. The issue seemed to boil down to whether Hank was selling gov’t coffee or not. It’s all got me fairly bored.
Things have since degenerated into a scheming dealing free for all between the teamsters and the infantry. Who’s got what for sale or trade. We’re getting to know each other. We visited the ox wagon yesterday to try to learn what they might have. I chose that wagon in particular because Cornbread works on it, and he’s the only skinner in the train I’ve met before, in Knoxville. He was in the back of the wagon with another teamster, acting like he didn’t know me. It’s a tall rig with high sides. We could only see the tops of their heads. “Hey ‘Bread! You got any goods you might sell or trade?” “What?” They were busy doing something in there. It looked like they might be digging a hole. “We’re looking to buy food for our mess!” ‘Bread’s head popped up over the side. “We got peaches.” “What else?” His head popped back down out of sight. “What?” “What else?” “What else what!” “What else you think you might have?” “We got peaches! And tobacco!” “We have those things. What else?” “Might have some oysters!” His head popped up again. “We got oysters. And condensed milk. What do you got.” and so on.
Bob Bowser says he’s killed 6 ticks crawling across his ground cloth since we set up camp today, and lost two others.
“The Emperor's Mess”: Our mess has christened Bobo, Michael, Rob and Beau’s mess with this name. Yesterday, after we stopped they set up their fly and I saw them lounging under it, stripped to their bottom drawers. I told the boys in my mess they looked like a Roman bath. And it started. “The Centurion Mess.” “The Senator’s Mess.” “The Emperor's Mess!” The last one stuck and we will make it keep sticking. We seem to have been named the Odd 6 Mess as there are 6 of us where there are normally four [in a squad]. Today though we are 5, as Bill Bamann had to fall out from heat and cramps. We expect he will recover.
The heat has been rough today. This morning we were issued cooked grits. My section was assigned advance guard again. We started through the pines. The sound was cardinals and cicadas. The sun was just up, casting long morning shadows, but the air was already hot and still. Butterflies were flickering about as we stepped off. We soon left the trees and moved out into open country, the wagons banging along behind.
I’m told the mercury reached 100 today. It was at least in the upper 90s. I can tell you that it was exceedingly thermal. It was caloric. It pounded. Trees were on every side of us now but we followed the road, out in the hot open meadows. The only good news was that it was bad bushwhacking country.
Lieutenant Beedle ordered a halt. We just stood there in the heat, glowing with sweat. The lieutenant, in his alarmingly cheerful manner said “Take some shade, boys.” We were standing on the road in the middle of an open field without a tree or a stick of shade for a quarter mile in any direction. My file partner Jay and I went to huddling next to a pine bush about 2 1/2 feet tall as if from the wind. But there was no wind, just the still heat, and the little bush wasn’t shading much of anything. We tried placing our hats in it to block the sun a little bit but they kept falling out because the branches were more like twigs. It was pretty miserable.
Why we were stuck there waiting we knew not. We speculated that the road behind us was being built up by the rear guard, over a small culvert we’d passed a while back, for the ox team to get across, which meant we would have to wait there for a while, but they were just being brought to water.
We moved forward again, the train winding behind, then the rear guard. We were halted and started again a few times, sometimes every 3 rods or so. In my mind I kept pulling for the next tree line that would come into view because it seemed sure that the road would lead into it and we would reach some shade, but every time we would approach any trees a new gap would appear, the road would curve and new open country would unfold ahead of us, like the Sahara with some dried grass thrown on top. The tree lines were only masking it, mocking us.
Bill fell out from the heat somewhere along this time. We have learned that he’s been sent to a rear hospital. He may be back up with us soon.
The only grain of comfort was a breeze that finally came up across the field. We were sweating faster than it was blowing.
On we trudged. The wagons moved a fair bit of the time in the grass alongside the road, to save tear on hooves.
The animals were rested for a few minutes behind us and again we waited in the sun. Some of us hunkered behind 2 or 3 hay rolls which happened to be there. Jay, Bob Bowser and I found a shallow gully containing some scrub bushes that offered some shade. There were blackberry bushes there but the berries were dried up. We placed our hats on top of our muskets and sat angling the hats toward the sun, as the shade there was still scant.
Paddy Mack came up on his horse for our canteens, which were nearly empty, and brought them back just as the lead wagon started bearing down on us. And off we went, the train banging and jangling behind us.
Not long after, the road finally led into a woods. It was a sweet feeling to enter the trees again.
We were again halted and waited for a while, taking shade along the road. The sun was high by now so there was not a great deal of it to be had, but much more than a single pine bush had provided. The bushwhacking opportunities seemed scant here as well, as the 2nd growth chaparral on either side of us was too dense to move around in without kicking up alot of noise.
We lay there idly, not knowing what was happening down the road. Some new born butterflies were flickering around in the cut. One landed on the ground near where I was sitting. I held out my finger to it and it climbed on. It was purple black with blue spots, less than an inch wide. I watched it flex its wings up and down. The rest of the guard had fallen asleep in the dead leaves with their heads against a dirt berm. We were all grimy and sweat soaked. It was quiet but for the insects and the whiporwills [sic]. I could see buzzards circling through the strip of sky above. The butterfly flew off my finger. I tried reading a dime book, but lost interest after the word ‘verdure’ was used 3 times in the first four pages. It had just gotten to what might be an interesting part where a lady was standing on a porch in a mining town in California, but I didn’t care anymore after all the verdure. I fell asleep in line with the others until we were wakened by the sound of wagons coming.
We had made good time in the open country and had moved beyond the spot that had been scouted for a camp. A number of the wagons were unable to turn around in the narrow lane, flanked by woods, and so had to head even further to find an area wide enough to allow them to turn around and come back.
We watched them rumble back past us and then countermarched back down to where the train was setting up camp in the road. The infantry felled small trees for fly poles, drew tarps from the wagons and secured them to trees on one side, then to the poles in the road on the other. Soon there was a crooked line of white canvas in the air with all manner of traps spread on the ground below, or hanging from guy ropes. Just about every shirt worn that day by the company was draped from a bush on the opposite side of the lane from where the tents were secured. It looked like a shirt orchard. Those with extra shirts put them on, those without went with bare chests. Some who had spare shirts didn’t bother to put them on because they were already so filthy after 4 days of marching in the Tennessee heat.
Bare chests were a problem if the men wanted to walk down to the train, due to the presence of the women now traveling with us. We had to walk past them to get anywhere. I went to draw an axe and had to put on my jacket and button it up over my skin.
It turned out that there was a swimming hole nearby. After we’d done the firewood detail we walked down along the train and out onto the plain. We saw Hank the Swamper and invited him along. He said “Oh, I hate getting wet.” We went over a hill and there saw a dammed up pond with a few heads bobbing in it.
We shucked our truck and swished our shirts in the edge of the water, trying not to stir up the mud. I soaped up my shirt as best I could. There was a black grease stain right on the front of it. I scrubbed that with especial care but all I ended up with was the same black stain with a clean spot around it. There was no way to wash our bottom drawers without putting them back on wet.
We slipped and slid through the orange mud at the edge and tossed ourselves in the water. It was as nice to swim and wash in the pond as I suppose one can imagine it would be after a 6 mile stop and start trek across that open plain today. We washed our hair and faces with a piece of soap I’d brought and then threw it to Bobo who was doing laundry off of a floating branch he’d dragged into the water with him.
I clambered up out of the pond, through the mud at the edge, pulled on my drawers and sat drying in the sun. There isn’t much deadfall in these woods, so we brought back some wood from a pile which had built up near the pond dam. I grabbed a log, but Bob Hutton felt that we should be more ambitious and dragged the biggest possible log out of the pile he could find. We picked it up and headed back to the train. I told Bob that if we were going to haul the thing all the way back, it should belong to our mess and not be donated to the company cook fire. I needed a strategy to get it past the officers and suggested we walk past the fire and just keep walking until ordered to stop.
The day was as blistering as ever. It was 1/4 mile, mostly uphill, to our camp. Bob and I walked along the train with the log on our shoulders and through the officers area, where sure enough they asked where we were going with that big log. We pretended not to hear and they didn’t pursue the matter. [We] shoved for the end of the camp.
By now I was as hot & sweaty as when we’d left for the pond, from toting this tarned log. Bob and I dropped it on the ground in front of our fly. It quickly became a bench, which gave respite to all the sitting on the ground. I christened the bench “Bob’s Folly”.
Sgt. Berezuk has been breveted from sergeant to captain. That’s alright by me. The other day Bobo and I were growling because he’d yelled at us earlier in the day, something about “Just because you’re at route step doesn’t mean you lose formation!” I was about to say something clever about him losing some teeth, when we heard a voice from some tall grass about a rod away say “If you did your jobs I wouldn’t have to do mine!” I’m sure glad he spoke up when he did. Bobo and I calculated that we were on the black list with him after that, but it seems to have blown over. I was never really sore with him. We were just talking slush. The lieutenant didn’t seem to mind the sgt. being promoted above him, and that’s one of the reasons we like the lieut.
Half a pig for supper, then we got mail, early this evening. I read a letter from S., which was a joy. We all did a bit of sharing around, reading letters aloud.
Toward candle lighting I proposed to get a card game up. We’d invited a few of the wagoners down. I was digging the wax out of the candle holder in my little lantern so as to put in a new candle when the knife slipped. Seems I did a fair job of sharpening the thing as it put a good slice into my right index finger. I could tell it was fairly deep. Hank the Swamper showed up for the big game just as I was sitting there in the road pouring blood, debating whether to get out the housewife and give myself a couple of stitches. He said “I’ll come back.”, turned around and ran smack into Sgt. Hicks who commenced to blow him up for being in our camp and kicked him out. The sgt. asked if anyone had invited him into camp. I could not raise my hand on account of its being attended to at the moment. Ha ha.
Now the heat lightning has commenced, rain threatens and it looks like the big game is up the spout.
A couple of days ago I bought some pears off a wagoner 3 for 5 cents. I got 9 of them as they were small. Today I learned that he was selling us our own rations. This got me exercised, I’ll say. I’m here in large part so I can eat steady, and I find out I’m spending my wages to buy food that was intended to be issued to me anyway from a kitteny little sharp. His name is Nate and we’re going to try to get charges brought against him. We call him Pear Boy the Barefoot Bastard now. I don’t think I make much of a patriot, but speculation like this is taking food away from soldiers and putting money in the pockets of hucksters like him. This sort of corruption is breaking out all over the place and taking government food away from men up ahead who are trying to knock the yankees back into Ohio. It gets me mad. Besides, they weren’t ripe yet and tasted like wood.
I’m laying in a wagon rut writing this by candle. I just heard Bobo say “I’ll bet you a dollar to an apple pie that I have to get up in the middle of a rain storm to pee.” Anyone riding down this road is going to drag about 3 tent flies along with them before they get tangled up and pitch over. There’s nowhere else to camp. It’s still hot as Egypt and the sun went down hours ago. The thought of laying under a blanket is no go. Mine has served as a pillow for days now. I haven’t even unrolled it. Rain is starting and I will close and crawl under the fly.
August 4th?, 1862
Awakened at 4:30 this morning by C’pl Biederman. Our section had rear guard so we were behind the ox team the whole way, who move slower than the horses & mules. The ox wagon has a crack in the base of its limber. I forgot the right term for the part. It could go at any time. Some of the animals are injured - rubbed raw from harnesses, right through the flesh in some cases.
We still made good time through the forest today. We heard a shot gun blast away ahead of us, about mid day, followed by one or two other shots. Paddy Mac appeared later on horseback to say that he’d been fired on by 2 or 3 men who then vanished.
I was nation tired by the time we came out of the forest into a bit of a clearing. Being last out of the woods, we had to picket in that direction. It is a bilious thing to be half blown like that and hear people laughing, eating and setting up their camps while you stand 6 rods away watching some trees. But there are clearly some Tennesseans out there who want to take shots at us.
We were relieved and soon we had the flies up in the trees, our camp laid out, and a fire going out on the road. Bob Bowser spent hours roasting ears, boiling rice & c. for us while Bob Hutton made a perfect passel of johnny cakes. I don’t know how they did it. It is so blamed hot that if I even stick my head in and blow on a campfire 3 times to get it going, by the time I get back out into the regular heat, sweat is pouring into my eyes for half an hour.
Bob Bowser’s the only one in the Odd 6 Mess who has acquired a pet name; Jay give him a pepper yesterday. Bob got pepper oil on his hands and rubbed his neck with them somehow and it got in some bramble scratches. His eyes popped for 1/2 an hour and now he’s Pepper. This is convenient as there are two Bobs in the mess.
Jay, Bob Hutton and I set out to buy or barter what food we could from the train. All the wagoners have stores for this purpose. I’m watching them now to make sure they are not mixing government stores in with it. I’m still stewing about those pears. We done pretty well, came away with 2 cans of peaches, eggs, oysters, sugar. The regular infantry can’t get this kind of stuff. The process got complicated. At one point I struck a deal with one of the ladies traveling with the train whereby she would trade friction matches if we would haul wood for the officer’s mess fire, and she would help buy the oysters if we would trade for something else we had plus chop logs to set the mess kettles on. I think that’s how it went. In the end the Odd 6 made a respectable haul.
Later, Michael Schaffner from the Emperor's Mess came over to our fly with his pen set and helped us to write up formal charges against the wagoner that sold us the wooden pears. He helped us out like a regular lawyer and wrote it all out very pretty and official looking. I tricked Bob Hutton into signing as the chief testifier, with Pepper and myself as witnesses, which was rotten of me, but Bob is awful shy and having to testify at a court martial might help acclimate him more to engaging with people. We are calling Bob “The Silent Assassin” sometimes.
August 5th, 1862
Bill came up from the hospital and seems good as new.
Last night we had another go at that card game. Bob, Bill, Pepper and I went down to the ox wagon at the end of the train, as Hank the Swamper is still persona non grata with Sgt. Hicks in our camp. We picked up Paddy Mack on the way. Jay weaved in and out of the game as he was busy trying to procure some wet goods from the teamsters and was apparently successful, as Bob told him he could start a house on fire just by breathing.
It was blackjack for stamps, played by candlelight in the road. I dealt and broke about even. We talked yankees, bushwhackers, politics, Tennessee, Kentucky. It turned out Bob had been in the Mexican War and he told us about Taylor and the battle of Buena Vista.
We threaded our way back to camp in the dark by lantern light and laid under the fly, making general antics for a bit as quietly as we could. I started writing in here, and found out that I was an unwitting source of amusement as my candle was projecting light across my bandaged hand and the knot ends sticking out of it were creating a a shadow puppet show on the ceiling of the fly as I wrote. There was so much suppressed laughing going on in general that I didn’t notice.
August 6th, 1862
Up with the dawn. Yesterday we were halted on the road. “Rest” was called. The road was a bit sunken there and gave a nice stretch on the sides to sit down on, which we did. I was next to Bobo. He pulled a couple of letters out, asked me to read them aloud. One from his wife and one from his sister. I read the one from his wife. It was the sweetest, purest, plainest bit of prose. The whole forest seemed to go quiet. Bobo was starting to get leaky. It was one of those little moments that you take along with you. The silence continued. I put the letter back in the envelope, handed them back to Bobo and said “I’m not going to read the other one. We barely made it through the first one.” - by way of a joke to try to kill off the melancholy. It was that good kind of sad that reminds us why we’re here but it still made a body feel alloverish. Then Cornbread come down from the ox wagon and started insulting us, calling us featherbed soldiers, saying we won’t fight & c., kicking dust at us. He’ll call you names while he shares the last of his switchel with you. I imagine that when he was four years old he was wearing a broad brimmed hat and high boots, and cursing at the other children.
Well, today we were at the rear of the train again. Jay has made me into a tobacco chewer. I’ve avoided the stuff, but I was bored on the march (which is like saying I was wet in the water) and he offered me a chaw. I bit it off. He showed me how to work it, and 1/2 an hour later I was spitting juice like I’d been doing it for years. Whoever writes those tracts we get about avoiding camp vices should come on the march for a couple of days and see how they do.
By and by there was a pop pop popping up ahead. We double timed up there and were halted and ordered to load. The advance guard was out on either side of the road in a skirmish line spread out across a clearing dotted with tall bushes, and rifle shots were puffing out from the trees on the other side of the clearing about 1/4 mile away.
Some of us staid with the wagons. I was sent out with the skirmish line to the left of the road. We worked our way through waist high grass, which I was grateful for as regards covert, but it soaked us from the waist down. It’s a strange place worrying about wet shoes and meeting the Lord at the same time. We worked our way across the clearing. I couldn’t see much but tall grass, bushes, Jay on my left and Pepper & Bill on my right.
We come to a rise and crouched down. I saw a puff of smoke from the tree line in front, then heard the shot. We were ordered forward, and it was a moment that required some starch, which I seemed to be running low on right then. Either that fellow had fired and fled at our approach or fired and reloaded and had a bead on any one of us. A smart bushwhacker would fire and then hie out, but I don’t hold much stock in these clay eaters being all that smart.
Jay and I leap frogged forward through the tall grass, firing and loading. I was laying down to load zouave indian style. I wanted badly to move forward that way too, but the rest of the line was walking forward, so I did as well. As we approached the woods, a coyote yip hound dog calling went up from us. The woods appeared to be cleared. We crouched in a line in the pine trees and could hear shots further ahead. All they were trying to do was slow down the train. Apparently there was a face to face fight with them on our right, but I never saw more from them than puffs of smoke.
The skirmish line was called in and soon I found myself in the advance guard. We seemed to be headed down a different road, a detour from the bushwhackers, at least for a spell. They can hear the wagons moving and can find us in short order.
Presently we came to a small clearing with an abandoned cabin in it. Four of us were ordered to guard the cabin, for no reason I could see. Soon, part of the train came up, with the rest of it staying in another clearing about 1/8 mile down the road. It commenced to raining and I was able to snatch a nap on the porch of the cabin. It was an opportune time for a roof to show up.
I was awakened and sent out on one of the patrols looking for bushwhackers. Of course it stopped raining as soon as I fastened on my oil cloth. No bushwhackers.They seem to have had their fill for today. Just the forest dripping at us. Saw a couple of deer, or at least some big and tan things with four feet. Anything out there with 4 feet is fine by me. It’s the 2 footed ones I don’t like.
We toted packs & tools to our camp from the train and set up mess flies in the clearing. Our flies are tarps from the wagons. They help give shade. The boys up ahead of us don’t get the luxury of a big piece of canvas to hang over themselves to keep the sun and rain off.
When I had first heard we would be on wagon guard I had imagined we would sleep under the wagons or string shelter from them, but the teamsters don’t mix with us much, except to trade goods or insults. The women traveling with the train don’t mix with anybody except the menfolk already with them. They’re either veiled off somewhere or escorted about, and don’t talk to us. We just stand and take off our hats when they walk by. That’s about it. Today they were moving around a fair bit, so we did a fair bit of standing and doffing. At one point 3 or 4 of us were sitting around cleaning our muskets, and here came a whole budget of ladies escorted by their men, on their way to the creek to bathe. They sort of sprung up on us. Jay was sitting with his trousers unbuttoned, and no time to button them up. He was a 3 way loser at that point because his only choices were to remain sitting, stand up with his fly unbuttoned, or stand up and turn around. He went with option 3 and stood with his back to the girls, holding up his trousers and cursing under his breath. We can’t talk to the women, but we can talk about them, and they are nice to look at.
The heat has been punishing since we stepped off, but isn’t so bad today. I had a few candle stubs in my bed roll. I just dug them out and they are all fused together in a lump. Had to break one off with my knife. Friction matches won’t light on account of humidity and sweat. I took to putting mine in the tin of my cartridge box, but they still won’t light. It involves alot of striking and frowning to get one going.
Last night I was talking with Hank the swamper about his dilemna w. the sergeant. He is convinced that the sgt. cheated him over the coffee. I don’t think he did and whether he did or not, Hank’s making the wrong enemies at the wrong time. Pepper and I said we’d talk to Corp. Kosek about talking to Sgt. Hicks about it. Hank agreed to provide the coffee that had never been delivered in exchange for a truce with the sgt. But then he started fretting because the coffee was cut w. saw dust. I asked him why he did that. He said he got it like that. Such is the atmosphere of corruption around the quartermaster corps. I don’t like it.
Anyway I decided to do Hank a good turn and mentioned it to Cpl. Kosek today. Once the cpl. was sure he wouldn’t get personally dragged into the affair he agreed to talk to Sgt. Hicks about it. Later in the day it came to pass that Hank had delivered up the coffee and was allowed back in the infantry camp.
So we done Hank a good turn, but I get the feeling he’d only sell us a turn back, with saw dust in it. We are lucky to have Cpl. Kosek w. us. He’s just one of the chaps, doesn’t order us around, will stick up for us at the pinch. So when he does tell us what to do we listen.
We had inspection today. Jay’s musket was rusty. Sgt. Hicks hauled him up about it, in his quiet way. Jay said it was because it was an old smooth bore, and the rest of the men had gotten new yankee Springfields but run out when they got to him. He said he had felt “like a jilted hen after a rooster raid” after that, and could the sgt. please look into procuring him a Springfield. I don’t have any idea what the jilted hen comment meant but the sgt. started out to give Jay gehenna for negligence and wound up promising to try to find him a new musket. I call that genius, however he did it.
Well, the major put in an appearance earlier. He assembled us, said we were into Tennessee and announced that some local women had made us a collation in gratitude. I wonder if any of the people who cooked it are related to the ones who were shooting at us today. There were hurrahs all around The grub consisted of a bean stew. It was good. The ladies all sat with the officers, shielded from the rough scuff rank & file.
Then came serenading & banjo music. But the unexpected treat was about to come. The Emperor's Mess had rigged up a sort of Roman banner on a scrap of cloth. “SPQR” was written on it in charcoal. I don’t know much latin so I speculate it stood for “Silly People Quite Right”. The banner was hung horizontally on a sapling branch which was then hung from a pole, on top of which were corn husks fashioned into what I think was an eagle. Three of them came parading out with the ad hoc banner (I know some latin) wearing laurel crowns made up of what might have been maple leaves. Whatever they were, they were much too big and gave the effect of bushes on their heads. They proceeded to enumerate the daring adventures & exploits of the Emperor's Mess. I didn’t know they had any, but they were quite eloquent about whatever it was they had done. Now here comes Bobo! He’s also wearing a laurel wreath, over his plug hat, and comes galloping around the side of the cabin, riding a mangled branch he has between his legs. While making whinnying noises, he rides it completely around his comrades, who are standing in a line, and reins up at the end of the line.
They continued their eloquent solilequees [sic] and when they got to the part about today’s fight against the bushwhackers, Bobo’s branch reared up & he galloped forward a few paces to interject his own comments, including kicking a branch full of dead leaves around that just happened to be laying in front of him and yelling phrases like “Git you bushwhackers git! I see you in that bush! Now I’m going to Whack you! Git now!” he then galloped back triumphantly to his place in the line of thespians, surging forward again from time to time, whooping and proclaiming as the narrative progressed.
Soon this Roman comedy concluded to enthusiastic applause. It had been a smasher, all the more amazing because the whole performance seemed like they’d rehearsed it for days but they’d only slapped it up in a few minutes. It allowed us to laugh about the day’s events. We faced the music today, and we stopped the tune, at least for now. We will no doubt hear it again and by God we will stop it again.
Candle lighting approaches. We are going to go for another game of cards tonight. Pepper is keen on starting a chuck a luck racket. We will have to see how tonight’s proceeds are.
Later. Played cards. Broke about even again. I don’t know if Bobo got hold of some of the creature while celebrating his earlier command performance, but he wasn’t able to keep track of his cards even a little. He kept recounting, then realizing one card had been hidden behind another one. He’d get distracted and join a conversation going on behind him while we waited for him to bet. He’d say “Hit me” when his turn was over. One time, I gave him seven cards in a row. He kept recounting them, ciphering, looking at the sky. Jay finally said. “Hell, take off your shoes!” Bobo studied his cards, said “Shit.” then “Give me another one.” We howled with laughter. Then he started insisting that I was cheating on the deal. I told him he could deal if he wanted. He said “Well, I would have dealt, but I probably would have got caught.”
After the game we sat up talking under the stars for a bit. I scribbled in here. I will now write a letter to S. I am very tired and it’s hard to see to write, but there’s no easy time to do it. In her last letters her spirit was restless and she expressed the desire to wander. I am here to help insure that she can wander wherever she wants in her own fair country.
August 7th, 1862
Up with the dawn. Kicked Pepper in the head last night in the dark accidentally. He barely woke. In the morning light I saw that I’d been walking through a number of sleeping men during the night without knowing it. Tried to make some coffee this morning to no avail. Not enough time. We have advance guard today. Our arms are stacked & we are sitting by the side of the road waiting for the wagons.
Company is stopped in a field. Dark as Erebus. Fireflies flaring green out in the forest. Spots of foxfire a steady green glow. Voices drifting through the dark. Trying to build a small fire for coffee w. rotten wood. It doesn’t go well so far. Animals quiet. Heat and humidity at 9:00 PM are a challenge. Daddy longlegs half the size of my hand keep crawling out of the wood I’m trying to light and across my groundcloth. 17 year cicadas making a huge racket.
No moon. Can’t see a thing 3 feet from the fire. No moon tomorrow either of course. Hooray for the planning department. Kentucky had better be glad to see us. Of course Kentucky can do what it wants, but I hope we push out the yankees and inspire the Kentuckians to join us.
Bobo, while playing blackjack with me, said “We got to deal these damn cards better.”
August 2nd, 1862
At assembly last evening I just did not care a straw. It was much too hot for military deportment. Sgt. Hicks sets a fine example but it did not take.
This morning we rec’d 2 days rations. Bread (soft), meat pie & fruit pie. I don’t know if the singular of “fruit” is “fruits” but if so, these are “fruit” pies: mostly half baked bread with some small dab of some sort of a fruit in the center. These ought to keep me stopped up good for a while.
Sat up late last night with Bobo and Gerry, the ox teamster, hearing about his adventures on the Santa Fe Trail and in the Mexican War, hauling freight all the while, and some of the bits of knowledge and tricks he has picked up along the way. He is a rough man, but smart and philosophical. It was 1:30 AM when I closed my eyes. I’m watching him hitch up his team now. “Gee! Gee! Haw! Up! Whoah! Charles and James! Two steps back. One. Two. Good! Gee. Gee. Whoah. Charles! You stop thinking right now.”
Stepped off w/o ceremony. I was assigned to the advance guard. Not having been there before, the whole section quickly learned that there is a unique form of distress which quickly occurs when one is walking in front of a mule team and a 2000 pound wagon. We were to keep 50 yards in front, but the lead driver seems not to have received the order and the mules were thundering on our heels. This arrangement is a wonderful elixir for fatigue on the march.
I had planned to do some sewing and reading when we stopped for nooning, but all I did was sleeping.
After mid day we hit two different places where tongues of boulder rock were sticking out of the ground on rises in the road which needed to be graded. Out came axes and shovels, and away we swung in the heat. We spelled each other and dug and filled for a season. When the last wagon passed we picked up our traps to find the haversacks crawling w. ants that had found the fruit pies. Sgt. Berezuk opined cheerfully “It’s not so bad. They’re small. They don’t eat much.” When we unstacked muskets the barrels were almost too hot to touch, from setting in the sun. Some ladies have joined the train and seem to be associating with the teamsters. They are a curiosity. We encountered the second spot in the road that needed grading. It was on a hill. We shoveled, chopped and sweated till the road was passable. I accidentally hit Jay in the side of the face with a shovelful of dirt. The first team up the hill faltered. One of the mules lost its traction and fell to its front knees. They were now stuck on the incline. Another team was unhitched, brought forward and hitched to the first with a long chain. Then “Pull! Hyup! Hyup! Pull!” The chains flailed, there was a shock of wood and metal slamming together, harnesses rattled as the mules pulled and strained mightily. Nothing. We unloaded the wagon. Finally up she went. Oh - not quite - the front right wheel was hung up on a small tree. Now she’s out. That’s ONE wagon.
The hill turned into an operation that took all afternoon. By evening half the wagons were up and the other half waiting on the other side of a small creek. We made camp in the forest. The wagons seem to be strung out all along the road. The animals had to be walked a mile to water. I guess the little stream at the base of the hill was too small.
I have been in a bit of a foul mood. Can’t find anything. What I can find seems to be broken.
Aug. 4 [3rd], 1862
Kicked awake at 4:30 AM for fire watch. Jay tells me he was awakened around midnight for fire watch and was so confused he thought he was supposed to go on picket and started to put on his traps.
I washed my shirt in the creek last night and put on the spare. There just aren’t any branches on these trees low enough to hang a wet shirt on, and the humidity just plain gets things wet and keeps them that way.
I can hear teams going by on the road on the way to being hitched. The oxen make a thudding noise, the bells around their necks sounding like sleigh bells made of lead. The mules and horses are more of a prancing jingle. When they’re all hitched and moving it’s a bang thud bang bang thud. The hooves collectively sound most like a powerful waterfall.
This morning we were sweating before the sun came up. The breeze will blow and start to cool us off and, without fail, stops again 15 seconds later. Michael Schaffner said “I know I got some sleep last night because I kept waking up in agony.” Waiting for the teams to be hitched gave us time to get our traps arranged. Did more road grading. Brought the rest of the wagons up the hill. Where the mules had fought and failed, the oxen just walked up it like it was nothing. One of the oxen went to its knees at the same spot one of the mules had, but just went back up on its shanks with the same nonchalance as swishing a horse fly off its back. They hauled the heaviest wagon in the train up that hill completely loaded and didn’t stop for anything.
Nooning now. We followed the train through some pine lots on a dusty road and found it stopped and the animals grazing. We’re in those same pines. The heat is bad but we seem to be bearing up. Bobo’s tending to Silas’s blister next to me. Reread my letter from S. It’s a beauty. I started a response.
Later. We’ve stopped early as the animals are dangerously jaded. I’m not sure what all the train is hauling, but someone up ahead is bound not to receive what they’re expecting on time.
Speaking of whatever it is we’re hauling there was just quite a little dust up regarding a transaction the orderly sgt. made with the teamsters for coffee for the co. Apparently Hank, one of the swampers, claimed the sgt. gammoned him $1.50 for it and he came over to our camp complaining about it. The s’gt didn’t suffer that. There was an argument which this wagoner was bound to lose. Swamper Hank was walked [back] over to his rig at musket point. There was a further argument and the entire company, which was just then busy doing nothing, was ordered “Under arms!” and assembled on the road in various states of readiness. We were ordered to fix and charge bayonets and advanced on the teamsters. I looked beyond the points of our bayonets and saw teamsters backing away, ladies running and hiding their faces with their hats. I looked to my right and saw Mike Schaffner advancing with the line, with a look of steely determination, wearing only his bottom drawers and a pair of brogans. The swamper was captured and brought in front of the major while the company watched. It had all gotten pretty ridiculous by now.
Company A had seen the elephant, repulsing a handful of mule whackers and women, and meanwhile the supplies for the army sit here while we squabble. The issue seemed to boil down to whether Hank was selling gov’t coffee or not. It’s all got me fairly bored.
Things have since degenerated into a scheming dealing free for all between the teamsters and the infantry. Who’s got what for sale or trade. We’re getting to know each other. We visited the ox wagon yesterday to try to learn what they might have. I chose that wagon in particular because Cornbread works on it, and he’s the only skinner in the train I’ve met before, in Knoxville. He was in the back of the wagon with another teamster, acting like he didn’t know me. It’s a tall rig with high sides. We could only see the tops of their heads. “Hey ‘Bread! You got any goods you might sell or trade?” “What?” They were busy doing something in there. It looked like they might be digging a hole. “We’re looking to buy food for our mess!” ‘Bread’s head popped up over the side. “We got peaches.” “What else?” His head popped back down out of sight. “What?” “What else?” “What else what!” “What else you think you might have?” “We got peaches! And tobacco!” “We have those things. What else?” “Might have some oysters!” His head popped up again. “We got oysters. And condensed milk. What do you got.” and so on.
Bob Bowser says he’s killed 6 ticks crawling across his ground cloth since we set up camp today, and lost two others.
“The Emperor's Mess”: Our mess has christened Bobo, Michael, Rob and Beau’s mess with this name. Yesterday, after we stopped they set up their fly and I saw them lounging under it, stripped to their bottom drawers. I told the boys in my mess they looked like a Roman bath. And it started. “The Centurion Mess.” “The Senator’s Mess.” “The Emperor's Mess!” The last one stuck and we will make it keep sticking. We seem to have been named the Odd 6 Mess as there are 6 of us where there are normally four [in a squad]. Today though we are 5, as Bill Bamann had to fall out from heat and cramps. We expect he will recover.
The heat has been rough today. This morning we were issued cooked grits. My section was assigned advance guard again. We started through the pines. The sound was cardinals and cicadas. The sun was just up, casting long morning shadows, but the air was already hot and still. Butterflies were flickering about as we stepped off. We soon left the trees and moved out into open country, the wagons banging along behind.
I’m told the mercury reached 100 today. It was at least in the upper 90s. I can tell you that it was exceedingly thermal. It was caloric. It pounded. Trees were on every side of us now but we followed the road, out in the hot open meadows. The only good news was that it was bad bushwhacking country.
Lieutenant Beedle ordered a halt. We just stood there in the heat, glowing with sweat. The lieutenant, in his alarmingly cheerful manner said “Take some shade, boys.” We were standing on the road in the middle of an open field without a tree or a stick of shade for a quarter mile in any direction. My file partner Jay and I went to huddling next to a pine bush about 2 1/2 feet tall as if from the wind. But there was no wind, just the still heat, and the little bush wasn’t shading much of anything. We tried placing our hats in it to block the sun a little bit but they kept falling out because the branches were more like twigs. It was pretty miserable.
Why we were stuck there waiting we knew not. We speculated that the road behind us was being built up by the rear guard, over a small culvert we’d passed a while back, for the ox team to get across, which meant we would have to wait there for a while, but they were just being brought to water.
We moved forward again, the train winding behind, then the rear guard. We were halted and started again a few times, sometimes every 3 rods or so. In my mind I kept pulling for the next tree line that would come into view because it seemed sure that the road would lead into it and we would reach some shade, but every time we would approach any trees a new gap would appear, the road would curve and new open country would unfold ahead of us, like the Sahara with some dried grass thrown on top. The tree lines were only masking it, mocking us.
Bill fell out from the heat somewhere along this time. We have learned that he’s been sent to a rear hospital. He may be back up with us soon.
The only grain of comfort was a breeze that finally came up across the field. We were sweating faster than it was blowing.
On we trudged. The wagons moved a fair bit of the time in the grass alongside the road, to save tear on hooves.
The animals were rested for a few minutes behind us and again we waited in the sun. Some of us hunkered behind 2 or 3 hay rolls which happened to be there. Jay, Bob Bowser and I found a shallow gully containing some scrub bushes that offered some shade. There were blackberry bushes there but the berries were dried up. We placed our hats on top of our muskets and sat angling the hats toward the sun, as the shade there was still scant.
Paddy Mack came up on his horse for our canteens, which were nearly empty, and brought them back just as the lead wagon started bearing down on us. And off we went, the train banging and jangling behind us.
Not long after, the road finally led into a woods. It was a sweet feeling to enter the trees again.
We were again halted and waited for a while, taking shade along the road. The sun was high by now so there was not a great deal of it to be had, but much more than a single pine bush had provided. The bushwhacking opportunities seemed scant here as well, as the 2nd growth chaparral on either side of us was too dense to move around in without kicking up alot of noise.
We lay there idly, not knowing what was happening down the road. Some new born butterflies were flickering around in the cut. One landed on the ground near where I was sitting. I held out my finger to it and it climbed on. It was purple black with blue spots, less than an inch wide. I watched it flex its wings up and down. The rest of the guard had fallen asleep in the dead leaves with their heads against a dirt berm. We were all grimy and sweat soaked. It was quiet but for the insects and the whiporwills [sic]. I could see buzzards circling through the strip of sky above. The butterfly flew off my finger. I tried reading a dime book, but lost interest after the word ‘verdure’ was used 3 times in the first four pages. It had just gotten to what might be an interesting part where a lady was standing on a porch in a mining town in California, but I didn’t care anymore after all the verdure. I fell asleep in line with the others until we were wakened by the sound of wagons coming.
We had made good time in the open country and had moved beyond the spot that had been scouted for a camp. A number of the wagons were unable to turn around in the narrow lane, flanked by woods, and so had to head even further to find an area wide enough to allow them to turn around and come back.
We watched them rumble back past us and then countermarched back down to where the train was setting up camp in the road. The infantry felled small trees for fly poles, drew tarps from the wagons and secured them to trees on one side, then to the poles in the road on the other. Soon there was a crooked line of white canvas in the air with all manner of traps spread on the ground below, or hanging from guy ropes. Just about every shirt worn that day by the company was draped from a bush on the opposite side of the lane from where the tents were secured. It looked like a shirt orchard. Those with extra shirts put them on, those without went with bare chests. Some who had spare shirts didn’t bother to put them on because they were already so filthy after 4 days of marching in the Tennessee heat.
Bare chests were a problem if the men wanted to walk down to the train, due to the presence of the women now traveling with us. We had to walk past them to get anywhere. I went to draw an axe and had to put on my jacket and button it up over my skin.
It turned out that there was a swimming hole nearby. After we’d done the firewood detail we walked down along the train and out onto the plain. We saw Hank the Swamper and invited him along. He said “Oh, I hate getting wet.” We went over a hill and there saw a dammed up pond with a few heads bobbing in it.
We shucked our truck and swished our shirts in the edge of the water, trying not to stir up the mud. I soaped up my shirt as best I could. There was a black grease stain right on the front of it. I scrubbed that with especial care but all I ended up with was the same black stain with a clean spot around it. There was no way to wash our bottom drawers without putting them back on wet.
We slipped and slid through the orange mud at the edge and tossed ourselves in the water. It was as nice to swim and wash in the pond as I suppose one can imagine it would be after a 6 mile stop and start trek across that open plain today. We washed our hair and faces with a piece of soap I’d brought and then threw it to Bobo who was doing laundry off of a floating branch he’d dragged into the water with him.
I clambered up out of the pond, through the mud at the edge, pulled on my drawers and sat drying in the sun. There isn’t much deadfall in these woods, so we brought back some wood from a pile which had built up near the pond dam. I grabbed a log, but Bob Hutton felt that we should be more ambitious and dragged the biggest possible log out of the pile he could find. We picked it up and headed back to the train. I told Bob that if we were going to haul the thing all the way back, it should belong to our mess and not be donated to the company cook fire. I needed a strategy to get it past the officers and suggested we walk past the fire and just keep walking until ordered to stop.
The day was as blistering as ever. It was 1/4 mile, mostly uphill, to our camp. Bob and I walked along the train with the log on our shoulders and through the officers area, where sure enough they asked where we were going with that big log. We pretended not to hear and they didn’t pursue the matter. [We] shoved for the end of the camp.
By now I was as hot & sweaty as when we’d left for the pond, from toting this tarned log. Bob and I dropped it on the ground in front of our fly. It quickly became a bench, which gave respite to all the sitting on the ground. I christened the bench “Bob’s Folly”.
Sgt. Berezuk has been breveted from sergeant to captain. That’s alright by me. The other day Bobo and I were growling because he’d yelled at us earlier in the day, something about “Just because you’re at route step doesn’t mean you lose formation!” I was about to say something clever about him losing some teeth, when we heard a voice from some tall grass about a rod away say “If you did your jobs I wouldn’t have to do mine!” I’m sure glad he spoke up when he did. Bobo and I calculated that we were on the black list with him after that, but it seems to have blown over. I was never really sore with him. We were just talking slush. The lieutenant didn’t seem to mind the sgt. being promoted above him, and that’s one of the reasons we like the lieut.
Half a pig for supper, then we got mail, early this evening. I read a letter from S., which was a joy. We all did a bit of sharing around, reading letters aloud.
Toward candle lighting I proposed to get a card game up. We’d invited a few of the wagoners down. I was digging the wax out of the candle holder in my little lantern so as to put in a new candle when the knife slipped. Seems I did a fair job of sharpening the thing as it put a good slice into my right index finger. I could tell it was fairly deep. Hank the Swamper showed up for the big game just as I was sitting there in the road pouring blood, debating whether to get out the housewife and give myself a couple of stitches. He said “I’ll come back.”, turned around and ran smack into Sgt. Hicks who commenced to blow him up for being in our camp and kicked him out. The sgt. asked if anyone had invited him into camp. I could not raise my hand on account of its being attended to at the moment. Ha ha.
Now the heat lightning has commenced, rain threatens and it looks like the big game is up the spout.
A couple of days ago I bought some pears off a wagoner 3 for 5 cents. I got 9 of them as they were small. Today I learned that he was selling us our own rations. This got me exercised, I’ll say. I’m here in large part so I can eat steady, and I find out I’m spending my wages to buy food that was intended to be issued to me anyway from a kitteny little sharp. His name is Nate and we’re going to try to get charges brought against him. We call him Pear Boy the Barefoot Bastard now. I don’t think I make much of a patriot, but speculation like this is taking food away from soldiers and putting money in the pockets of hucksters like him. This sort of corruption is breaking out all over the place and taking government food away from men up ahead who are trying to knock the yankees back into Ohio. It gets me mad. Besides, they weren’t ripe yet and tasted like wood.
I’m laying in a wagon rut writing this by candle. I just heard Bobo say “I’ll bet you a dollar to an apple pie that I have to get up in the middle of a rain storm to pee.” Anyone riding down this road is going to drag about 3 tent flies along with them before they get tangled up and pitch over. There’s nowhere else to camp. It’s still hot as Egypt and the sun went down hours ago. The thought of laying under a blanket is no go. Mine has served as a pillow for days now. I haven’t even unrolled it. Rain is starting and I will close and crawl under the fly.
August 4th?, 1862
Awakened at 4:30 this morning by C’pl Biederman. Our section had rear guard so we were behind the ox team the whole way, who move slower than the horses & mules. The ox wagon has a crack in the base of its limber. I forgot the right term for the part. It could go at any time. Some of the animals are injured - rubbed raw from harnesses, right through the flesh in some cases.
We still made good time through the forest today. We heard a shot gun blast away ahead of us, about mid day, followed by one or two other shots. Paddy Mac appeared later on horseback to say that he’d been fired on by 2 or 3 men who then vanished.
I was nation tired by the time we came out of the forest into a bit of a clearing. Being last out of the woods, we had to picket in that direction. It is a bilious thing to be half blown like that and hear people laughing, eating and setting up their camps while you stand 6 rods away watching some trees. But there are clearly some Tennesseans out there who want to take shots at us.
We were relieved and soon we had the flies up in the trees, our camp laid out, and a fire going out on the road. Bob Bowser spent hours roasting ears, boiling rice & c. for us while Bob Hutton made a perfect passel of johnny cakes. I don’t know how they did it. It is so blamed hot that if I even stick my head in and blow on a campfire 3 times to get it going, by the time I get back out into the regular heat, sweat is pouring into my eyes for half an hour.
Bob Bowser’s the only one in the Odd 6 Mess who has acquired a pet name; Jay give him a pepper yesterday. Bob got pepper oil on his hands and rubbed his neck with them somehow and it got in some bramble scratches. His eyes popped for 1/2 an hour and now he’s Pepper. This is convenient as there are two Bobs in the mess.
Jay, Bob Hutton and I set out to buy or barter what food we could from the train. All the wagoners have stores for this purpose. I’m watching them now to make sure they are not mixing government stores in with it. I’m still stewing about those pears. We done pretty well, came away with 2 cans of peaches, eggs, oysters, sugar. The regular infantry can’t get this kind of stuff. The process got complicated. At one point I struck a deal with one of the ladies traveling with the train whereby she would trade friction matches if we would haul wood for the officer’s mess fire, and she would help buy the oysters if we would trade for something else we had plus chop logs to set the mess kettles on. I think that’s how it went. In the end the Odd 6 made a respectable haul.
Later, Michael Schaffner from the Emperor's Mess came over to our fly with his pen set and helped us to write up formal charges against the wagoner that sold us the wooden pears. He helped us out like a regular lawyer and wrote it all out very pretty and official looking. I tricked Bob Hutton into signing as the chief testifier, with Pepper and myself as witnesses, which was rotten of me, but Bob is awful shy and having to testify at a court martial might help acclimate him more to engaging with people. We are calling Bob “The Silent Assassin” sometimes.
August 5th, 1862
Bill came up from the hospital and seems good as new.
Last night we had another go at that card game. Bob, Bill, Pepper and I went down to the ox wagon at the end of the train, as Hank the Swamper is still persona non grata with Sgt. Hicks in our camp. We picked up Paddy Mack on the way. Jay weaved in and out of the game as he was busy trying to procure some wet goods from the teamsters and was apparently successful, as Bob told him he could start a house on fire just by breathing.
It was blackjack for stamps, played by candlelight in the road. I dealt and broke about even. We talked yankees, bushwhackers, politics, Tennessee, Kentucky. It turned out Bob had been in the Mexican War and he told us about Taylor and the battle of Buena Vista.
We threaded our way back to camp in the dark by lantern light and laid under the fly, making general antics for a bit as quietly as we could. I started writing in here, and found out that I was an unwitting source of amusement as my candle was projecting light across my bandaged hand and the knot ends sticking out of it were creating a a shadow puppet show on the ceiling of the fly as I wrote. There was so much suppressed laughing going on in general that I didn’t notice.
August 6th, 1862
Up with the dawn. Yesterday we were halted on the road. “Rest” was called. The road was a bit sunken there and gave a nice stretch on the sides to sit down on, which we did. I was next to Bobo. He pulled a couple of letters out, asked me to read them aloud. One from his wife and one from his sister. I read the one from his wife. It was the sweetest, purest, plainest bit of prose. The whole forest seemed to go quiet. Bobo was starting to get leaky. It was one of those little moments that you take along with you. The silence continued. I put the letter back in the envelope, handed them back to Bobo and said “I’m not going to read the other one. We barely made it through the first one.” - by way of a joke to try to kill off the melancholy. It was that good kind of sad that reminds us why we’re here but it still made a body feel alloverish. Then Cornbread come down from the ox wagon and started insulting us, calling us featherbed soldiers, saying we won’t fight & c., kicking dust at us. He’ll call you names while he shares the last of his switchel with you. I imagine that when he was four years old he was wearing a broad brimmed hat and high boots, and cursing at the other children.
Well, today we were at the rear of the train again. Jay has made me into a tobacco chewer. I’ve avoided the stuff, but I was bored on the march (which is like saying I was wet in the water) and he offered me a chaw. I bit it off. He showed me how to work it, and 1/2 an hour later I was spitting juice like I’d been doing it for years. Whoever writes those tracts we get about avoiding camp vices should come on the march for a couple of days and see how they do.
By and by there was a pop pop popping up ahead. We double timed up there and were halted and ordered to load. The advance guard was out on either side of the road in a skirmish line spread out across a clearing dotted with tall bushes, and rifle shots were puffing out from the trees on the other side of the clearing about 1/4 mile away.
Some of us staid with the wagons. I was sent out with the skirmish line to the left of the road. We worked our way through waist high grass, which I was grateful for as regards covert, but it soaked us from the waist down. It’s a strange place worrying about wet shoes and meeting the Lord at the same time. We worked our way across the clearing. I couldn’t see much but tall grass, bushes, Jay on my left and Pepper & Bill on my right.
We come to a rise and crouched down. I saw a puff of smoke from the tree line in front, then heard the shot. We were ordered forward, and it was a moment that required some starch, which I seemed to be running low on right then. Either that fellow had fired and fled at our approach or fired and reloaded and had a bead on any one of us. A smart bushwhacker would fire and then hie out, but I don’t hold much stock in these clay eaters being all that smart.
Jay and I leap frogged forward through the tall grass, firing and loading. I was laying down to load zouave indian style. I wanted badly to move forward that way too, but the rest of the line was walking forward, so I did as well. As we approached the woods, a coyote yip hound dog calling went up from us. The woods appeared to be cleared. We crouched in a line in the pine trees and could hear shots further ahead. All they were trying to do was slow down the train. Apparently there was a face to face fight with them on our right, but I never saw more from them than puffs of smoke.
The skirmish line was called in and soon I found myself in the advance guard. We seemed to be headed down a different road, a detour from the bushwhackers, at least for a spell. They can hear the wagons moving and can find us in short order.
Presently we came to a small clearing with an abandoned cabin in it. Four of us were ordered to guard the cabin, for no reason I could see. Soon, part of the train came up, with the rest of it staying in another clearing about 1/8 mile down the road. It commenced to raining and I was able to snatch a nap on the porch of the cabin. It was an opportune time for a roof to show up.
I was awakened and sent out on one of the patrols looking for bushwhackers. Of course it stopped raining as soon as I fastened on my oil cloth. No bushwhackers.They seem to have had their fill for today. Just the forest dripping at us. Saw a couple of deer, or at least some big and tan things with four feet. Anything out there with 4 feet is fine by me. It’s the 2 footed ones I don’t like.
We toted packs & tools to our camp from the train and set up mess flies in the clearing. Our flies are tarps from the wagons. They help give shade. The boys up ahead of us don’t get the luxury of a big piece of canvas to hang over themselves to keep the sun and rain off.
When I had first heard we would be on wagon guard I had imagined we would sleep under the wagons or string shelter from them, but the teamsters don’t mix with us much, except to trade goods or insults. The women traveling with the train don’t mix with anybody except the menfolk already with them. They’re either veiled off somewhere or escorted about, and don’t talk to us. We just stand and take off our hats when they walk by. That’s about it. Today they were moving around a fair bit, so we did a fair bit of standing and doffing. At one point 3 or 4 of us were sitting around cleaning our muskets, and here came a whole budget of ladies escorted by their men, on their way to the creek to bathe. They sort of sprung up on us. Jay was sitting with his trousers unbuttoned, and no time to button them up. He was a 3 way loser at that point because his only choices were to remain sitting, stand up with his fly unbuttoned, or stand up and turn around. He went with option 3 and stood with his back to the girls, holding up his trousers and cursing under his breath. We can’t talk to the women, but we can talk about them, and they are nice to look at.
The heat has been punishing since we stepped off, but isn’t so bad today. I had a few candle stubs in my bed roll. I just dug them out and they are all fused together in a lump. Had to break one off with my knife. Friction matches won’t light on account of humidity and sweat. I took to putting mine in the tin of my cartridge box, but they still won’t light. It involves alot of striking and frowning to get one going.
Last night I was talking with Hank the swamper about his dilemna w. the sergeant. He is convinced that the sgt. cheated him over the coffee. I don’t think he did and whether he did or not, Hank’s making the wrong enemies at the wrong time. Pepper and I said we’d talk to Corp. Kosek about talking to Sgt. Hicks about it. Hank agreed to provide the coffee that had never been delivered in exchange for a truce with the sgt. But then he started fretting because the coffee was cut w. saw dust. I asked him why he did that. He said he got it like that. Such is the atmosphere of corruption around the quartermaster corps. I don’t like it.
Anyway I decided to do Hank a good turn and mentioned it to Cpl. Kosek today. Once the cpl. was sure he wouldn’t get personally dragged into the affair he agreed to talk to Sgt. Hicks about it. Later in the day it came to pass that Hank had delivered up the coffee and was allowed back in the infantry camp.
So we done Hank a good turn, but I get the feeling he’d only sell us a turn back, with saw dust in it. We are lucky to have Cpl. Kosek w. us. He’s just one of the chaps, doesn’t order us around, will stick up for us at the pinch. So when he does tell us what to do we listen.
We had inspection today. Jay’s musket was rusty. Sgt. Hicks hauled him up about it, in his quiet way. Jay said it was because it was an old smooth bore, and the rest of the men had gotten new yankee Springfields but run out when they got to him. He said he had felt “like a jilted hen after a rooster raid” after that, and could the sgt. please look into procuring him a Springfield. I don’t have any idea what the jilted hen comment meant but the sgt. started out to give Jay gehenna for negligence and wound up promising to try to find him a new musket. I call that genius, however he did it.
Well, the major put in an appearance earlier. He assembled us, said we were into Tennessee and announced that some local women had made us a collation in gratitude. I wonder if any of the people who cooked it are related to the ones who were shooting at us today. There were hurrahs all around The grub consisted of a bean stew. It was good. The ladies all sat with the officers, shielded from the rough scuff rank & file.
Then came serenading & banjo music. But the unexpected treat was about to come. The Emperor's Mess had rigged up a sort of Roman banner on a scrap of cloth. “SPQR” was written on it in charcoal. I don’t know much latin so I speculate it stood for “Silly People Quite Right”. The banner was hung horizontally on a sapling branch which was then hung from a pole, on top of which were corn husks fashioned into what I think was an eagle. Three of them came parading out with the ad hoc banner (I know some latin) wearing laurel crowns made up of what might have been maple leaves. Whatever they were, they were much too big and gave the effect of bushes on their heads. They proceeded to enumerate the daring adventures & exploits of the Emperor's Mess. I didn’t know they had any, but they were quite eloquent about whatever it was they had done. Now here comes Bobo! He’s also wearing a laurel wreath, over his plug hat, and comes galloping around the side of the cabin, riding a mangled branch he has between his legs. While making whinnying noises, he rides it completely around his comrades, who are standing in a line, and reins up at the end of the line.
They continued their eloquent solilequees [sic] and when they got to the part about today’s fight against the bushwhackers, Bobo’s branch reared up & he galloped forward a few paces to interject his own comments, including kicking a branch full of dead leaves around that just happened to be laying in front of him and yelling phrases like “Git you bushwhackers git! I see you in that bush! Now I’m going to Whack you! Git now!” he then galloped back triumphantly to his place in the line of thespians, surging forward again from time to time, whooping and proclaiming as the narrative progressed.
Soon this Roman comedy concluded to enthusiastic applause. It had been a smasher, all the more amazing because the whole performance seemed like they’d rehearsed it for days but they’d only slapped it up in a few minutes. It allowed us to laugh about the day’s events. We faced the music today, and we stopped the tune, at least for now. We will no doubt hear it again and by God we will stop it again.
Candle lighting approaches. We are going to go for another game of cards tonight. Pepper is keen on starting a chuck a luck racket. We will have to see how tonight’s proceeds are.
Later. Played cards. Broke about even again. I don’t know if Bobo got hold of some of the creature while celebrating his earlier command performance, but he wasn’t able to keep track of his cards even a little. He kept recounting, then realizing one card had been hidden behind another one. He’d get distracted and join a conversation going on behind him while we waited for him to bet. He’d say “Hit me” when his turn was over. One time, I gave him seven cards in a row. He kept recounting them, ciphering, looking at the sky. Jay finally said. “Hell, take off your shoes!” Bobo studied his cards, said “Shit.” then “Give me another one.” We howled with laughter. Then he started insisting that I was cheating on the deal. I told him he could deal if he wanted. He said “Well, I would have dealt, but I probably would have got caught.”
After the game we sat up talking under the stars for a bit. I scribbled in here. I will now write a letter to S. I am very tired and it’s hard to see to write, but there’s no easy time to do it. In her last letters her spirit was restless and she expressed the desire to wander. I am here to help insure that she can wander wherever she wants in her own fair country.
August 7th, 1862
Up with the dawn. Kicked Pepper in the head last night in the dark accidentally. He barely woke. In the morning light I saw that I’d been walking through a number of sleeping men during the night without knowing it. Tried to make some coffee this morning to no avail. Not enough time. We have advance guard today. Our arms are stacked & we are sitting by the side of the road waiting for the wagons.
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