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                 DIARY
                   OF
            AN ENLISTED MAN

                   BY
          LAWRENCE VAN ALSTYNE
             SHARON, CONN.

            NEW HAVEN, CONN.
 THE TUTTLE, MOREHOUSE & TAYLOR COMPANY
                  1910




   Copyrighted 1910
          by
 LAWRENCE VAN ALSTYNE




             WITH LOVING REGARD
        FOR THE MEMORY OF MY PARENTS
 WHO WATCHED FOR AND EAGERLY READ THE DIARY
    AS FROM TIME TO TIME IT CAME TO THEM
         AND TO MY COMRADES-IN-ARMS
           WHETHER LIVING OR DEAD
  THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED.




PREFACE


In the multitude of books written about the Civil War, very little is
said of the enlisted man. His bravery and his loyalty are admitted and
that is about all. Of his everyday life, the very thing his family and
friends cared most to know about, there is hardly anything said.

It is to remedy this omission in some degree that the following pages
are published. They were written by an enlisted man and are mostly about
enlisted men. They are filled with details that history has no room for,
and for that reason may have an interest quite their own.

They were written at different times, in different places, and under a
great variety of circumstances and conditions. Some were written as the
line halted for rest while marching from place to place, some while
waiting for trains or other modes of transportation, but the most were
written by the light of a candle or a smoldering camp-fire while my
comrades, no more weary than I, were sleeping about me. All were written
amid scenes of more or less confusion, and many times of great
excitement. They were written because of a promise made to my parents
that I would make notes of my wanderings and of the adventures I met
with.

At first I found it an irksome task, taking time I really needed for
rest; but as time went on the habit became fixed, and I did not consider
the day's work done until I had written in my diary of the events that
came with it.

The diary was kept in small pocket notebooks, of a size convenient to
carry in my pocket, and be ever ready for use. There was never a lack of
subjects to write about. Events crowded upon each other so fast that
each day furnished plenty of material for the time I could give it. I
had never been far from home. The sights I saw were new and strange to
me and made deep impressions. These, as best I could, I transferred to
the pages of my diary, so the friends at home could, in a way, see the
sights I saw and that seemed so wonderful to me. When pages enough were
written for a letter, I cut them out and sent them home to be read by
any who cared to, after which they were strung together on a string and
saved for me to read again, should I ever return to do it. When I did
return I found the leaves had so accumulated as to make a large bundle.
There was no need for me to read them at that time, for the story they
told was burned too deep in my memory to be easily forgotten.

So I tied them in a bundle and put them away in an unused drawer of my
desk, where they lay, unread and undisturbed for the next forty-five
years.

But while the old diary lay hidden in my desk a new generation had crept
upon the stage. We no longer occupied the center of it. One by one we
had been crowded off, and our ranks were getting so thin we had to feel
around for the touch of a comrade's elbow. Every year there were more
comrades' graves to decorate, and every year there were fewer of us left
to decorate them. At last we had met an enemy we could not even hope to
conquer. With sadness we saw first one and then another called out, and
they did not return. They had answered the last roll call, and it was
only a question of a little time when the last name would be called, and
the muster-out rolls be folded up and filed away.

It was with a feeling of ever-increasing loneliness that I untied the
bundle and began to read the long-forgotten diary. In a little while I
was a boy again, one of that great company that helped to make history
read as it does. Almost half a century had suddenly rolled back and I
was with Company B--"Bostwick's Tigers" we were called, not altogether
on account of our fighting qualities, but because of the noise we
sometimes made. I was having my share of the fun that was going, and
was taking my share of the hard knocks as well.

I was never so absorbedly interested. I even forgot my meals. For weeks
I thought of little else and did little else than read and copy those
dim old pages. I read from them to any who would listen, and wondered
why it did not stir their blood as it did my own.

But the reason is plain. To the listener it was hearsay. To me it was
real. So it may be with the diary now it is printed. In the nature of
things it cannot be to others what it is to me. It is a part of my life.
My blood would not tingle as it does at the reading of another man's
life. It is what historians had neither time nor space to write, the
everyday life of an enlisted man in time of war.

                                                              L. V. A.

October, 1910.




CONTENTS


                                                                    PAGE

 CHAPTER I--THE RECRUITING CAMP                                        1

    First steps as a Soldier--The five-day furlough.

 CHAPTER II--THE JOURNEY SOUTH                                        16

    The march through Hudson--The stop in New York--Breakfast at
      "The Cooper Shop"--Arrival at Baltimore--When we first
      heard the "Long Roll."

 CHAPTER III--CAMP MILLINGTON, MD.                                    23

    School of the Soldier--On picket at Catonsville--Trip to
      Gettysburg--Dinner at Hanover--Meeting the 150th--Roast
      chicken--Stuart's Mansion Hospital.

 CHAPTER IV--ON BOARD THE ARAGO                                       61

    A morning on Chesapeake Bay--At Newport News--At Fortress
      Monroe--The journey South continued--Sickness and death on
      board--A burial at sea--Quarantined.

 CHAPTER V--QUARANTINE STATION, LA.                                   73

    Cooking graybacks--A big catfish--Starting a graveyard--The
      most trying circumstances war can bring.

 CHAPTER VI--CAMP CHALMETTE, LA.                                      80

    Spying out the land--Foiling an attempt at suicide--Clash
      with the 28th Maine--An interrupted sermon--Brownell's
      last words.

 CHAPTER VII--CAMP PARAPET, LA.                                       87

    Captain Bostwick gets married--In the hospital at last--Good
      care and treatment--The slow process of getting well--The
      Ponchatoula trip--Mosquitoes and alligators.

 CHAPTER VIII--PORT HUDSON, LA.                                      108

    Good-bye, Camp Parapet--Going up the river--Stop at
      Springfield Landing--Before the works--Capt. Gifford
      missing--The first assault--Stealing honey--Scared by a
      snake--The second assault--The "Forlorn Hope"--Captain
      Gifford comes back--Vicksburg surrenders--Port Hudson
      follows suit--The laying down of arms.

 CHAPTER IX--DONALDSONVILLE, LA.                                     149

    Leaving Port Hudson--Stop at Baton Rouge--At
      Donaldsonville--Living on the fat of the land--How sugar
      is made--Hickory Landing--Plaquemine--Baton Rouge.

 CHAPTER X--AT NEW ORLEANS, LA.                                      173

    Good-bye to the 128th--Down the river to New
      Orleans--Looking for General Grant--Finding General
      Grant--Joined the Corps de Afrique--Franklin's expedition
      to Texas--The return trip--Pilot Town, La.--Easy times.

 CHAPTER XI--BRASHEAR CITY, LA.                                      184

    Mustered into the service again--Waiting for orders--Up the
      Bayou Teche--Stealing a horse--Meeting the owner--At
      Mouton's Plantation--The return across the prairie--A sham
      battle--One kind of southern hospitality--Another kind of
      southern hospitality--Camp life at Brashear City.

 CHAPTER XII--THE LOUISIANA STEAM COTTON PRESS                       230

    In winter quarters--Dull times--The fortune-tellers--An old
      man's blessing--A pleasant surprise--Leave of absence--On
      board the steamer Creole--Seasick--Losing Henry
      Holmes--Wholesale visiting--Finding Henry Holmes.

 CHAPTER XIII--ON BOARD THE MCCLELLAN                                272

    The start for Dixie--The McClellan is not the Creole--A
      tough crowd--Man overboard--Martial law proclaimed--Arrest
      of the rioters--Storm at sea--Stop at Key West--In New
      Orleans again.

 CHAPTER XIV--THE RED RIVER CAMPAIGN                                 286

    Camping on The Laurel Hill--At Port Hudson again--Meeting
      the 128th--Up the Red River to Alexandria--Two trips to
      Grand Ecore--The river falling--The dam at Alexandria--The
      burning of Alexandria.

 CHAPTER XV--THE RED RIVER RETREAT                                   322

    Guarding the pontoon train--Sleeping on feathers--Killing
      the goose--Forced marching--The fight at Yellow
      Bayou--Crossing the Atchafalaya--Another forced march--A
      raw beef supper--Footsore and weary.

 CHAPTER XVI--CAMP AT MORGANZIA, LA.                                 332

    On picket with the western men--Smallpox appears--A pay-day
      misunderstanding--Building Fort Morgan--Fourth of July
      dinner--General Order 88--The army moving away.

 CHAPTER XVII--OUR LAST CAMP IN THE SOUTH                            346

    Leaving Morganzia--In camp near New Orleans--Good-bye,
      Dixie--Homeward bound.




CHAPTER I

The Recruiting Camp

    First steps as a Soldier--The five-day furlough.


_August 19, 1862._

HUDSON CAMP GROUNDS. I have enlisted! Joined the Army of Uncle Sam for
three years, or the war, whichever may end first. Thirteen dollars per
month, board, clothes and traveling expenses thrown in. That's on the
part of my Uncle. For my part, I am to do, I hardly know what, but in a
general way understand I am to kill or capture such part of the Rebel
Army as comes in my way.

I wonder what sort of a soldier I will make; to be honest about it, I
don't feel much of that eagerness for the fray I am hearing so much of
about me.

It seems to me it is a serious sort of business I have engaged in. I was
a long time making up my mind about it. This one could go, and that one,
and they ought to, but with me, some way it was different. There was so
much I had planned to do, and to be. I was needed at home, etc., etc. So
I would settle the question for a time, only to have it come up to be
reasoned away again, and each time my reasons for not taking my part in
the job seemed less reasonable. Finally I did the only thing I could
respect myself for doing,--went to Millerton, the nearest recruiting
station, and enlisted.

I then threw down my unfinished castles, went around and bid my friends
good-bye, and had a general settling up of my affairs, which, by the
way, took but little time. But I never before knew I had so many
friends. Everyone seemed to be my friend. A few spoke encouragingly, but
the most of them spoke and acted about as I would expect them to, if I
were on my way to the gallows. Pity was so plainly shown that when I had
gone the rounds, and reached home again, I felt as if I had been
attending my own funeral. Poor old father and mother! They had expected
it, but now that it had come they felt it, and though they tried hard,
they could not hide from me that they felt it might be the last they
would see of their baby.

Then came the leaving it all behind. I cannot describe that. The
good-byes and the good wishes ring in my ears yet. I am not myself. I am
some other person. My surroundings are new, the sights and sounds about
me are new, my aims and ambitions are new;--that is if I have any. I
seem to have reached the end. I can look backwards, but when I try to
look ahead it is all a blank. Right here let me say, God bless the man
who wrote "Robert Dawson," and God bless the man who gave me the book.
"Only a few drops at a time, Robert." The days are made of minutes, and
I am only sure of the one I am now living in. Take good care of that and
cross no bridges until you come to them.

I have promised to keep a diary, and I am doing it. I have also promised
that it should be a truthful account of what I saw and what I did. I
have crawled off by myself and have been scribbling away for some time,
and upon reading what I have written I find it reads as if I was the
only one. But I am not. There are hundreds and perhaps thousands here,
and I suppose all could, if they cared to, write just such an experience
as I have. But no one else seems foolish enough to do it. I will let
this stand as a preface to my diary, and go on to say that we, the first
installment of recruits from our neighborhood, gathered at Amenia, where
we had a farewell dinner, and a final handshake, after which we boarded
the train and were soon at Ghent, where we changed from the Harlem to
the Hudson & Berkshire R. R., which landed us opposite the gates of the
Hudson Fair Grounds, about 4 P. M. on the 14th. We were made to form in
line and were then marched inside, where we found a lot of rough board
shanties, such as are usually seen on country fair grounds, and which
are now used as offices, and are full of bustle and confusion. After a
wash-up, we were taken to a building which proved to be a kitchen and
dining room combined. Long pine tables, with benches on each side,
filled the greater part of it, and at these we took seats and were
served with good bread and fair coffee, our first meal at Uncle Sam's
table, and at his expense. After supper we scattered, and the Amenia
crowd brought up at the Miller House in Hudson. We took in some of the
sights of the city and then put up for the night.

The next morning we had breakfast and then reported at the camp grounds
ready for the next move, whatever that might be. We found crowds of
people there, men, women and children, which were fathers and mothers,
wives and sweethearts, brothers and sisters of the men who have enlisted
from all over Dutchess and Columbia counties. Squads of men were
marching on the race track, trying to keep step with an officer who kept
calling out "Left, Left, Left," as his left foot hit the ground, from
which I judged he meant everyone else should put his left foot down with
his. We found these men had gone a step further than we. They had been
examined and accepted, but just what that meant none of us exactly knew.
We soon found out, however. Every few minutes a chap came out from a
certain building and read from a book, in a loud voice, the names of two
men. These would follow him in, be gone a little while and come out,
when the same performance would be repeated. My name and that of Peter
Carlo, of Poughkeepsie, were called together, and in we went. We found
ourselves in a large room with the medical examiner and his clerks. His
salutation, as we entered, consisted of the single word, "Strip." We
stripped and were examined just as a horseman examines a horse he is
buying. He looked at our teeth and felt all over us for any evidence of
unsoundness there might be. Then we were put through a sort of gymnastic
performance, and told to put on our clothes. We were then weighed and
measured, the color of our eyes and hair noted, also our complexion,
after which another man came and made us swear to a lot of things, most
of which I have forgotten already. But as it was nothing more than I
expected to do without swearing I suppose it makes no difference.

The rest of the day we visited around, getting acquainted and meeting
many I had long been acquainted with. In the afternoon the camp ground
was full of people, and as night began to come, and they began to go,
the good-byes were many and sad enough. I am glad my folks know enough
to stay away. That was our first night in camp. After we came from the
medical man, we were no longer citizens, but just soldiers. We could not
go down town as we did the night before. This was Saturday night, August
17th. We slept but little,--at least I did not. A dozen of us had a
small room, a box stall, in one of the stables, just big enough to lie
down in. The floor looked like pine, but it was hard, and I shall never
again call pine a soft wood, at least to lie on. If one did fall asleep
he was promptly awakened by some one who had not, and by passing this
around, such a racket was kept up that sleep was out of the question. I
for one was glad the drummer made a mistake and routed us