Diary of an Enlisted Man Part 7

_November 27, 1862._

_Thursday._ This is really Thanksgiving day. So by my mistaking Tuesday for it I really have two holidays. The men are ash.o.r.e for a Thanksgiving sermon. I am taking mine in my bunk. Have less fever but more sore throat.

_November 28, 1862._

Lots of sick men to-day. I am better and was on duty again. Had only to attend sick call and take the men to the doctor. There were only six from Company B, while some companies had twenty. Sergeants n.o.ble and Kniffin were sent ash.o.r.e to the Chesapeake hospital to-day.

_Night._ John Thompson and Isaiah Dibble, fresh from the North, came on board to-night. Gave us all the home news and many loving messages from those we love so well. But the way they spoke of our quarters was scandalous. Said hogs would die if confined in such a pen as this.

_November 29, 1862._

Hurrah for camp once more! Our tents are being sent ash.o.r.e and a detail from each company goes to put them up. This began just at night and lasted all night. n.o.body slept, for some were working and the rest were thinking of living outdoors again.

_November 30, 1862._

_Sunday._ Camp Hamilton, right in sight of Fortress Monroe. The last day of fall and as perfect a day as ever was. We are on the ground again and it feels cold after the heated quarters on the boat. G.o.d help us if it rains, for this bare ground would soon be like a mortar bed. But we are not to cross any bridges until we come to them. Still I think we had better pray for a dry spell.

_December 1, 1862._

_Monday._ _Winter._ Just think of it, and yet but for the almanac I should call it Indian summer.

_December 2, 1862._

_Tuesday._ On board the Arago again. That is, most of us are. Some were sent to the hospital instead, Leonard Loucks among them. Orders came in the night, we were routed out, tents struck and tied up. We waited until morning and then till 9 A. M., when we were put on a boat and taken back here, just what for n.o.body knows that will tell. I declare this "hog-pen," as Thompson called it, seems like home. There is a familiar smell to it, and the beds are dry too.

_December 3, 1862._

_Wednesday._ Rainy day. Many have taken cold from our stay in camp and coughing and sneezing is going on all over the boat. I manage to keep up at this, and for coughing I think I take the lead. I am lucky in one thing though. Dr. Andrus once knew a Van Alstyne who he says was a very decent sort of a man, and often stops to talk of those of the name he knows, and to ask me about those I know. In that way he is able to keep track of my condition and give me more of his attention than he otherwise would.

_December 4, 1862._

Judging from appearances we are to move again. The anchor is coming up and there is hustling and bustling about all over the boat. Anything by way of excitement is good and I am glad something is going to happen. I miss a great many boats that were lying about us yesterday and every now and then one goes past us towards the open sea.

_Later._ We're off, heading in the only direction where no land is in sight.

_Later still._ Have learned this much. The Baltic is the flags.h.i.+p, with General Banks and staff on board. She has stopped and all the other vessels are forming in lines. Each vessel has orders which are only to be opened in case of separation from the flags.h.i.+p. It is too dark to see or to write and the s.h.i.+p pitches and dives terribly. Water dashes on deck sometimes, and this was almost thirty feet above water before we loaded up with coal.

_December 6, 1862._

_Sat.u.r.day._ Wind and waves both much higher. Nearly everyone except myself is seasick. Before it reaches me I am going to try and describe what is going on about me.

To begin with, our cabin quarters. I have told how the bunks are arranged, so just imagine the men hanging over the edge and throwing whatever is in them out on the floor or on the heads of those below them. The smell is awful. I was afraid to stir for fear my turn would come, but after a while did get out on deck. Here everyone seemed trying to turn themselves wrong side out. The officers bowed as low as the privates, and except for the sailors, there was no one in sight but seemed to be determined to gaze upon what they had eaten since the war began.

No one could stand without hanging fast to something, and fast to a rope that came from above to a ring in the deck were four men, swinging round in a circle, each one every now and then casting up his accounts on the back of the man in front. The deck was slippery and not being sailor enough to get about I climbed down again and after some narrow escapes reached my bunk to tell my diary the sights I had seen. I cannot tell of the smells. There is nothing I can think of to compare it with.

_December 7, 1862._

_Sunday night._ My turn came, but did not last long. I was able to see the others at their worst, and came out of it before the others were able to take much notice. Some are as sick as ever, but most of them are getting over it, and cleaning house is the order of the day. The sea is very rough, though not as bad as in the night. It seemed sometimes as if the Arago was rolling over. Lieutenant Sterling of Company D died a few hours ago. He had some sort of fever. We have a variety of diseases abroad if reports are true. I am getting careful about putting down what I cannot see for myself. It takes but little to start a story and by the time it has gone around the original teller would not believe it himself. For myself, I am all the better for my seasickness, and think those that are over it feel the same way. Rockets are going up from the different vessels in sight. I suppose someone knows what for, but I do not.

_December 8, 1862._

_Monday._ The storm is over and it is warm and pleasant. Lieutenant Sterling's funeral sermon was preached this morning on the quarter-deck.

On account of lack of room only his company and the commissioned officers attended. His body will be sent home when we land.

_December 9, 1862._

_Tuesday._ Land ho! I was on deck by the crack of dawn, saw the sun come up from the water; a beautiful sight. Saw two vessels going towards home and wished I was on board. Wm. Haight of our company is very sick. He is a general favorite and we all feel badly at the possibility of losing him.

_December 10, 1862._

Off the coast of Florida. We must be going to New Orleans as has been reported. I did not believe it at first, as there was a report that Charleston was our destination.

Haight died about sunrise, and his death has cast a gloom over Company B. He was one of the best fellows I have met with in the army. He was a little wild at first but later seemed to change. Talked of the trouble his habits had caused his parents and seemed determined to atone for it by a right about-face change. We shall miss his cheery voice. Such is war. It is over thirty-six days since the 128th and two companies of the 114th New York came aboard this vessel. It is a wonder so many are alive to-day. We get on deck now and the nights are so warm some of us sleep there. We suffer for good water to drink. What we have may be good, but it is distilled water, and there are so many of us we use it before it has time to get cold. On the quarter-deck, where we are not allowed to go, are barrels which contain _real water_, for officers' use only. I was let into a secret last night, how to get some of it, and I drank all I could hold. With a long rubber tube I crawled up behind a barrel and let the end down the bunghole, which is left open for ventilation, and sucked away as long as I could swallow. This will go on until someone is caught at it, and then the game will be up.

_December 11, 1862._

In the Gulf of Mexico. Flying fish and porpoises are in sight. The sailors say the porpoises are after the flying fish, and they skip out of the water and go as far as they can and then drop in again. It is a beautiful morning, and the water is smooth as gla.s.s on top. Under it, however, there seems to be a commotion, for the surface is up and down like hills and hollows on land. Ground swells, the sailors call it. In spite of the nice weather a great many are yet seasick. Three cases of measles are reported this morning. Every one who has never had them seems to be having them now. Only a few new cases of fever were reported. A big shark is following the vessel, after anything that is thrown overboard. It keeps up easily and as far as I can discover makes very little effort to do so.

_December 12, 1862._

At daylight Company B was called on deck and made to form in a three-sided square, the open side towards the rail. Poor Haight was then brought up in a rough box, which was set across the rail, the most of it projecting over the water, the end towards us being fastened down by a rope fastened to an iron on the deck. The chaplain made a prayer, and just as the sun rose out of the water the rope was slipped off, and the box plunged down into the water. I should have said that the engines were stopped and except for the chaplain's words the utmost silence prevailed. I shall never forget this, my first sight of a burial at sea.

It has all been so sudden, and so unexpected. He was only sick a few days. Never complained no matter what came, but always was foremost in any fun that can be got out of a life like this. It was at his father's house I took tea when home on my five-day furlough, and I am glad I could give his mother such a good account of him. It is hard for us to understand why Lieutenant Sterling's body can be kept for s.h.i.+pment home, while that of Haight could not.

_December 13, 1862._

Yet in the Gulf of Mexico. Company C lost a man last night. Company G has been turned out of their quarters and a hospital made of it. That crowds the others still more, but at the rate we go on the whole s.h.i.+p will soon be a hospital.

_10 a. m._ We have stopped at a sandy island, which they say is s.h.i.+p Island. The man who died last night has been taken off and they are digging a hole in the sand to put him in.

s.h.i.+p Island so far as I can discover is only a sand bar with a small fort on it, and with some soldiers about it the only live thing in sight. We weighed anchor about 4 P. M. and the next morning, Dec. 14th, stopped off the mouth of the Mississippi for a pilot. I am told this is called the South West Pa.s.s, being one of several outlets to the great Mississippi river. It looks like a mud flat that had been pushed out into the Gulf farther in some places than others. As far as the eye can reach the land is covered with a low down growth of gra.s.s or weeds that are but little above the water. We pa.s.sed a little village of huts near the outlet, where the pilots with their families live and which is called "Pilot Town." What they live on I did not learn. The huts are perched on piles driven in the mud, with board walks from one to the other and water under and about the whole.