XCVIII
Camp near Boonsboro, Md.,July 11, 1863.
Camp near Boonsboro, Md.,July 11, 1863.
Camp near Boonsboro, Md.,July 11, 1863.
Camp near Boonsboro, Md.,July 11, 1863.
KNOWINGhow anxious you must be to hear from me, and having a little spare time on my hands, I have traded a postage stamp for a sheet of paper and an envelope, and here I am. We have been doing some pretty tall marching since I last wrote. The rebels retreated from Gettysburg, leaving their dead unburied and thousands of their wounded as prisoners. Our army started at once in pursuit, our corps being, I think, the last to get away. I had ample time to go, at my leisure, over a good part of the field. And I got rid of that toothache that I told you about. For two or three days I wasn’t thinking much about my teeth. But when the strain was off a little, it all came back, and at last I got simply wild. Bill Stark [hospital steward] gave me some powder—morphine, I think—to tuck in, but I might as well have used so much flour. Our surgeons said they didn’t have a pair of forceps in their entire kit that they could tackle that tooth with. So I started out to find somebody that had. I had determined, if necessary, to go into Gettysburg, or even to Baltimore, to find a tooth-puller. The surgeon of one of the New Jersey regiments was my Good Samaritan. He was all packed up, ready for a start, but he overhauled a mule’s load, dug out some forceps that looked like a pair of tongs, seated me on a cracker box, and fastened on. That was the only time, in my experience, that it really felt good to have a tooth pulled.
Our corps left Gettysburg at two o’clock on the morning of July 7th, and now we are lying out here, somewhere within a thousand miles of Boonsboro, they say. Since the battle we have had reinforcements enough to organize a third division, and it is said to be larger than the other two combined. We are being hustled around pretty lively, and are likely to be rushed off in any direction at any moment. Last night we went into camp on Antietam battlefield, and I had just got to sleep when we were tumbled out and started off again. I marched and marched and marched, until I was completely fagged out. Then Jess. Dewey and I turned in by the side of the road, slept soundly and comfortably until morning, then raced on and caught up with the regiment. Just at this immediate time Company I is a little topheavy. Herm. Sleeper and I are the onlyprivates on duty, with five non-commissioned officers. The rest are used up and camped along the roadside, or in hospitals. The Army of the Potomac is doing some great marching and is in good spirits for a fight. We are sorry to lose General Sickles. He is very popular with the Third Corps, being very considerate in marching the men. Right or wrong, the average estimate of Birney is that he classes his men along with his horses and mules.
I do a little foraging now, but not as much as when in Virginia. But I pay for everything I get here, except apples and plums, while in Virginia I enforce the principle of confiscation. I have fried apples about every day. I got a pound of splendid butter yesterday for twenty-five cents, and once in a while I get a loaf of bread, some biscuits, or a pie.
Jess. Dewey and I have made a calculation, and find that since leaving Falmouth we have footed it about three hundred miles. My load was materially reduced by the loss of my knapsack. I picked up another one, but all I am carrying in it just now is a single piece of shelter-tent cloth. One of the bummers attached to the regiment found a box in a ditch, at Emmitsburg, containing two hundred dollars, mostly in gold. [The finder was a disreputable camp follower familiarly known as “Culpepper”—the brother of one of our officers—and there is reason to believe that his loot was the poor-box of the convent at Emmitsburg.]