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Camp Winfield Scott,Near Yorktown, Va.,April 20, 1862.
Camp Winfield Scott,Near Yorktown, Va.,April 20, 1862.
Camp Winfield Scott,Near Yorktown, Va.,April 20, 1862.
Camp Winfield Scott,
Near Yorktown, Va.,April 20, 1862.
TODAYwe received our first mail since leaving Camp Beaufort. We have moved up three miles nearer the rebel lines and are now doing our full share in the siege operations. We are working hard, building forts and trenches and roads, and should soon be able to qualify as experts with the pick and shovel. While our camp is probably a mile and a half from the rebel lines, our work is being done very much nearer, you can be sure. Yesterday and today we were out building roads. From where we were working we had a better view of the rebels than they did of us, and they didn’t pay much attention to us until we were on our way back. We got a little careless then, I suppose, and the first thing we knew one big shell burst directly overhead, while another tore up the landscape not very far away.
Day before yesterday a lieutenant of the Engineer Corps was brought on a stretcher back by our camp, one arm torn off and otherwise mutilated. He was sitting on the ground, making a sketch, when a rebel shell burst almost in his lap.
We are having, really, a pretty hard time of it. We are turned out almost every night and held in line to repel anticipated attacks. [This was one of Gen. Naglee’s fool stunts, that Hooker soon put a veto on.]
Our camp is on a big plain, gullied here and there by creeks. Near to us are the spots pointed out as the headquarters of Washington and Lafayette during the Revolutionary siege. I saw a little earthwork yesterday which was thrown up at that time, and a rusty iron cannon ball was dug up by the working party.
Our new four-piece [“shelter” or “dog”] tents have one great advantage—perfect ventilation. The tent’s crew of four button their sections together, and have a roof to crawl under; but the house is wide open at both ends.
It was just one year ago tomorrow that our company was first sworn into the service. We hardly thought then that one year from that date would still find us ’way down South. So far as I am concerned, I am enjoying myself immensely. Was never in better spirits or in better health.
Wednesday, April 23.—At last I have another chance to write on my letter. I have been on duty every day for six days. Today I am on camp guard. Our siege guns are now almost all in position, and they will doubtless get to work pretty soon. Thousands of men are working day and night on the siege works and the roads. On this wing of the army we are building a road along the side of a creek leading up to the rear of our batteries. The roadbed is twenty-four feet wide, made by tumbling in one bank of the creek. As this is mostly on the side toward the rebel works, leaving the road under embankments from ten to twenty feet high, troops and supplies going up to the front will have almost perfect cover and protection.
There is a continual skirmish all along the line, and men are killed or wounded every day. The other night a large force of rebels made a sally upon six companies of the Third Vermont, but the Sixth regiment, with a section of artillery, came to their support, and the rebels were sent back home in a hurry. We lost about 45 men, including two captains; the rebels about the same number, including a colonel.
Day before yesterday I managed to work about as much discomfort into twenty-four hours as ever fell to my lot. We were working on the road. It rained all day, and I was, of course, thoroughly soaked. And when we got back to camp there was no warm, dry nest to crawl into. Instead, the rain poured through the tent in streams, and there was no way to get away from it. It has taken me till now to get back to anything like normal conditions.
I saw two deserters from the rebels, who came in this morning. One of them was from Pennsylvania. He was pressed into the rebel service and took the first opportunity to desert.
My old tent-crew of Camp Beaufort is broken. It is no longer a matter of choice and selection. We are counted off in fours and tent in the same order we stand in the ranks. My present mates are Bill Ramsdell, Lyn Woods and Joe Gleason—all royal good fellows.