Diary of an Enlisted Man Part 12

_April 16, 1863._

_Thursday._ A letter from Walt Loucks asking me to come and see him.

Shall surely go if I can get a pa.s.s.

_April 17, 1863._

_Friday._ Went to see Walt. I had a first-rate visit. He is about well.

I did little but answer questions about what has been going on since we parted at Camp Chalmette, who is living and who have died and what sort of a place we are in. Found three letters for me when I came back.

_Later._ Marching orders with two days' cooked rations and 100 rounds of ammunition, blankets and overcoats. I am going, too, unless Dr. Andrus stops me. Must stop and write a letter before taps.

_April 18, 1863._

_Sat.u.r.day._ The regiment has gone and I am left. When will I get clear from the hospital? One of the hospital cooks, E. Furguson, died to-day.

There are hardly enough men in camp to bury him, only the sick and convalescent being left.

_April 19, 1863._

_Sunday._ We buried Furguson to-day. The grave was full of water and we had to punch the box down with sticks until the earth held it. Hear nothing from the regiment.

_April 20, 1863._

No real news yet. Lots of rumors though, one of which is that they are all cut up and the rest captured. We don't believe it.

_April 21, 1863._

Drew ten days' rations to-day, so I guess there is some of Company B left and that they will be back to eat it.

_April 22, 1863._

_Wednesday._ The regiment came back to-day. Have been gone four days.

Had some hard marching and lived high on pigs and chickens found by the way. They went up the Pearl River, and captured a small steamer loaded with tar and rosin. They feel fine and to hear them talk one would think this matter of putting down the Rebellion is nothing if only the 128th is given a good whack at it.

_April 23, 1863._

The officers have drawn new tents and the captains have given the cooks their old ones for cook-houses. We tore down the old shanty, and put up the new house in short order.

_April 24, 1863._

The morning paper gives a glowing account of the great expedition of the 128th. Speaks well of the behavior of both officers and men and their great respect for private property. But Colonel Cowles has been lecturing them and his account differs from the newspaper reports on nearly all points.

We were paid off to-day and the money flies. We have floors in our tents now. An order has gone forth for camp inspection once each day. The tents, the cook-houses and cooking utensils and everything will be inspected, and must be as clean as possible or trouble will come. Taking it all in all we have good times. One of the boys has a fiddle, and some are good singers. We have only enough to do to make us hungry when meal time comes.

_April 30, 1863._

Walter Loucks has returned to camp and looks well. He feels some sore from sleeping on a board, after his stay in the hospital, but that will wear off. General Dow has cleared the peddlers out of camp and torn down some shanties near, where pies, etc., were sold. My throat has got sore again and I must get Dr. Andrus to fix it up. We have had marching orders a couple of times, but each time they were countermanded.

_May 6, 1863._

Nothing unusual has happened since my last entry. I have written and have received several letters; have been on duty all the time, although I am supposed to be in the hospital yet. Have seen the doctor every day and he keeps tinkering at me. We hear all sorts of rumors of big battles and big victories and believe what we are a mind to. My office, commissary of Company B, is not very exacting while in camp. It keeps me out of the ranks though and until I get round again I am glad of it.

_May 10, 1863._

_Sunday._ Yesterday this regiment and many others were reviewed by General Banks. Evidently something is going to happen soon. The health of our regiment is fairly good now. I begin to find out that some had rather be sick than to be on duty, and they play it till Dr. Andrus sends them back to camp. We have some very hot weather, and then again some not so hot. Mosquitoes are the pest of our lives. They hide in our tents, ready to pounce upon us the minute we enter, and the only place we are free from them is in the hot sun outside. At night and on cloudy days they give us no peace. Their name is legion.

_May 11, 1863._

_Monday._ Charles Wardwell, and a fellow named Hamlin made me a call to-day. I was as much surprised as if they had risen right out of the ground before us. I did not know Charlie had enlisted. He is in the 23d Connecticut, which is doing guard duty along the railroad between Algiers and Brashear City, which they say is not very far from here. It is a nine months' regiment and their time is out in August. Though the news they could tell was rather old, I was very glad to see someone from G.o.d's country again, and we had much to tell each other of our experiences. They had only about a week on the transport and came through in good shape. They swallowed hard and tried to take down what I told them of our experience on board the Arago and in camp and hospital since, but I don't feel like blaming them if they did think I was lying.

But in the short time we were together the half could not be told.

_Night._ Marching orders. Three days' cooked rations and ten days' raw, to be packed for an early start to-morrow. Wardwell and his friend stay with us to-night.

_May 12, 1863._

"Pa.s.s MAN SHAK," or SOUTH Pa.s.s, LA. _Tuesday._ We left camp in charge of an officer and the convalescents and marched out on the plain about a mile, where a train stood waiting early this morning, and after a short ride stopped here, the most G.o.d-forsaken looking place I have yet seen.

It is a sort of connecting link between Lake Ponchartrain and Lake Marapaugh.[5] Our regiment and the 6th Michigan came. We soon came to the woods we had so often looked at from camp, and from that on it was one unbroken forest of the biggest and tallest trees I have yet seen.

There was water in pools all along and on every hand as far as can be seen. The railroad is built on piles driven in the mud, sawed off on a line and huge hewn timbers laid on them to support the ties and track.

Not a foot of dry ground anywhere and not a ray of suns.h.i.+ne could get through. But mosquitoes, I thought we had them in camp, but we did not.

It was only the skirmish line; the main body is here. I am writing this with one hand while the other is waving a bush to keep them from eating me alive. The men were ferried across on a small steamer and they went on out of sight, scrambling over the ties as best they could, for in places the woodwork has been burned out and then they had to climb down and wallow through the mud and then up on the ties again until the last of them were out of sight. I have really no business to be here as the captain objected, fearing I would be more bother than I was worth. Dr.

Andrus was not even consulted. When the train started I could not resist the temptation to go and I swung on and here I am with the quartermaster and the commissary stores, which are to go up the pa.s.s to where the men have gone. There is a large s.p.a.ce planked over, and we are in the dry and waiting for the boat to come for us. Men are busy rebuilding the burned out places in the trestlework and bridging the river, which is narrow here. Everyone calls it a "pa.s.s," but it has quite a current and is a river just the same.

_May 13, 1863._

We heard firing this morning and think the boys may be at work. A man came back about midnight last night. How he ever did it I don't see, but he said two soldiers fell through the trestlework and were hurt and had to be left behind.

_10 a. m._ The men who got hurt have crawled back and are here, just bruised up a little. I guess they didn't try very hard or they might have gone on.

_2 p. m._ Another straggler has come back and says the boys captured fourteen Indians after a short skirmish. They are being sent back under guard and will soon be here. Here they come, and a tough-looking lot they are; fourteen of them are said to be Indians, but they look more like plain n.i.g.g.e.rs to me. There are three white men. Rebels I suppose, but they don't act like very ferocious ones.

_May 18, 1863._

We slept in a drizzling rain, but the mosquitoes kept us so busy we took no cold. A boat came in the morning and we loaded the stores and started up the river, reaching a small lake called Lake Marapaugh (don't know how these names are spelled, so put them down according to sound), which is rather a widening of the river than a lake. The river is narrow and very crooked. The boat would run up to a bank, send a rowboat across with a line, which was made fast to a tree and the boat turned around a corner. This was done many times on the way up. Alligators lay on fallen trees and on the bank and many were swimming in the river. One came close to the bow of a barge which was lashed to the steamboat, and I hit him a whack on the snout with a piece of coal. From his actions he didn't like it. The water and the land seem to be on the same level. The tall cypress trees grow thick all the way and no opening appeared of any size. Some trees hang over the water so it was all we could do to get past and one did sweep the commissary's scales overboard. We finally came to hard ground and the live oaks and other trees took the place of the cypress, which only seems to grow in wet ground. A curious thing about the cypress is the way the roots grow up out of the ground.