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Oxford County (Maine, United States) (search for this): chapter 11
old veterans to haze recruits in many ways. Of course, there was no justification for their doing it, only as the recruits in some instances provoked it. There was a song composed during the war, entitled the Raw recruit, sung to the tune of Abraham's Daughter, which I am wholly unable to recall, but a snatch of the first verse, or its parody, ran about as follows:--I'm a raw recruit, with a bran‘--new suit, Nine hundred dollars bounty, And I've come down from Darbytown To fight for Oxford County. The name of the town and county were varied to suit the circumstances. In 1863 a draft was ordered to fill the ranks of the army, as volunteers did not come for- Drafted. ward rapidly enough to meet the exigencies of the service. Men of means, if drafted, hired a substitute, as allowed by law, to go in their stead, when patriotism failed to set them in motion. Many of these substitutes did good service, while others became deserters immediately after enlisting. Conscription
Henry Wilson (search for this): chapter 12
cers' messes. The canning of meats, fruits, and vegetables was then in its infancy, and the prices, which in time of peace were high, by the demands of war were so inflated that the highest of high privates could not aspire to sample them unless he was the child of wealthy parents who kept him supplied with a stock of scrip or greenbacks. It can readily be seen that his thirteen dollars a month (or even sixteen dollar, to which the pay was advanced June 20, 1864, through the efforts of Henry Wilson, who strove hard to make it twenty-one dollars) would not hold out a great while to patronize an army sutler, and hundreds of the soldiers when the paymaster came round had the pleasure of signing away the entire amount due to them, whether two, three, or four months pay, to settle claims of the sutler upon them. Here are a few of his prices as I remember them:-- Butter (warranted to be rancid), one dollar a pound; cheese, fifty cents a pound; condensed milk, seventy-five cents a can
James Brown (search for this): chapter 12
soldier mailed a letter home to mother, father, wife, sister, or brother, setting forth in careful detail what he should like to have sent in a box at the earliest possible moment, and stating with great precision the address that must be put on the cover, in order to have it reach its destination safely. Here is a specimen address:-- Sergeant John J. Smith, Company A., 19th Mass. Regiment, Second brigade, Second Division, Second Corps, Army of the Potomac, Stevensburg, Va. Care Capt. James Brown. As a matter of fact much of this address was unnecessary, and the box would have arrived just as soon and safely if the address had only included the name, company, and regiment, with Washington, D. C., added, for everything was forwarded from that city to army headquarters, and thence distributed through the army. But the average soldier wanted to make a sure thing of it, and so told the whole story. The boxes sent were usually of good size, often either a shoe-case or a co
Miles O'Reilly (search for this): chapter 12
old clothes, he at once expressed them back to his home. But, as I have intimated, such men were few in number, and, while war made this class more selfish, yet its community of hardship and danger and suffering developed sympathy and large-hearted generosity among 223 the rank and file generally, and they shared freely with their less fortunate but worthy comrades. Nothing, to my mind, better illustrates the fraternity developed in the army than the following poem, composed by Private Miles O'Reilly:-- We've drank from the same canteen. There are bonds of all sorts in this world of ours, Fetters of friendship and ties of flowers, And true lover's knots, I ween. The girl and the boy are bound by a kiss, But there's never a bond, old friend, like this-- We have drank from the same canteen. We drank from the same canteen. It was sometimes water, and sometimes milk, And sometimes apple-jack fine as silk. But, whatever the tipple has been, We shared it together, in bane or bl
S. B. Sumner (search for this): chapter 12
XI. special rations.--boxes from home.--sutlers. Can we all forget the bills on Sutler's ledger haply yet, Which we feared he would remember, and we hoped he would forget? May we not recall the morning when the foe were threatening harm, And the trouble chiefly bruited was, “The coffee isn't warm? Prof. S. B. Sumner. If there was a red-letter day to be found anywhere in the army life of a soldier,it occurred when he was the recipient of a box sent to him by the dear ones and friends he left to enter the service. Whenever it became clear, or even tolerably clear, that the army was likely to make pause in one place for at least two or three weeks, straightway the average soldier mailed a letter home to mother, father, wife, sister, or brother, setting forth in careful detail what he should like to have sent in a box at the earliest possible moment, and stating with great precision the address that must be put on the cover, in order to have it reach its destination safely. Here
John J. Smith (search for this): chapter 12
ecame clear, or even tolerably clear, that the army was likely to make pause in one place for at least two or three weeks, straightway the average soldier mailed a letter home to mother, father, wife, sister, or brother, setting forth in careful detail what he should like to have sent in a box at the earliest possible moment, and stating with great precision the address that must be put on the cover, in order to have it reach its destination safely. Here is a specimen address:-- Sergeant John J. Smith, Company A., 19th Mass. Regiment, Second brigade, Second Division, Second Corps, Army of the Potomac, Stevensburg, Va. Care Capt. James Brown. As a matter of fact much of this address was unnecessary, and the box would have arrived just as soon and safely if the address had only included the name, company, and regiment, with Washington, D. C., added, for everything was forwarded from that city to army headquarters, and thence distributed through the army. But the average sold
Cook (search for this): chapter 12
privileges were accorded him. In the second place, no soldier was compelled to patronize him, and yet I question whether there was a man in the service any great length of time, within easy reach of one of these traders, who did not patronize him more or less. In the third place, when one carefully considers the expense of transporting his goods to the army, the wastage of the same from exposure to the weather, the cost of frequent removals, and the risk he carried of losing his stock Cook's Shanty. of goods in case of a disaster to the army, added to the constant increase in the cost of the necessaries of life, of which the soldiers were not cognizant, I do not believe that sutlers as a class can be justly accused of overcharging. I have seen one of these merchants since the war, who seemed seized with the fullest appreciation of the worth of his own services to the country, and, with an innocent earnestness most refreshing, applied for membership in the Grand Army of the Rep
June 20th, 1864 AD (search for this): chapter 12
which he sold mostly for use in officers' messes. The canning of meats, fruits, and vegetables was then in its infancy, and the prices, which in time of peace were high, by the demands of war were so inflated that the highest of high privates could not aspire to sample them unless he was the child of wealthy parents who kept him supplied with a stock of scrip or greenbacks. It can readily be seen that his thirteen dollars a month (or even sixteen dollar, to which the pay was advanced June 20, 1864, through the efforts of Henry Wilson, who strove hard to make it twenty-one dollars) would not hold out a great while to patronize an army sutler, and hundreds of the soldiers when the paymaster came round had the pleasure of signing away the entire amount due to them, whether two, three, or four months pay, to settle claims of the sutler upon them. Here are a few of his prices as I remember them:-- Butter (warranted to be rancid), one dollar a pound; cheese, fifty cents a pound; co
Boston (Massachusetts, United States) (search for this): chapter 12
tten requisition given by the commander of a regiment or battery. He also sold supplies for officers' messes at cost price, and also to members of the rank and file, if they presented an order signed by a commissioned officer. Towards the end of the war sutlers kept self-raising flour, which they sold in packages of a few pounds. This the men bought quite generally to make into fritters or pancakes. It would have pleased the celebrated four thousand dollar cook at the Parker House, in Boston, could he have seen the men cook these fritters. The mixing was a simple matter, as water was the only addition which the flour required, but the fun was in the turning. A little experience enabled a Cooking pancakes. man to turn them without the aid of a knife, by first giving the fry-pan a little toss upward and forward. This threw the cake out and over, to be caught again the uncooked side down — all in a half-second. But the miscalculations and mishaps experienced in performing thi
Washington (United States) (search for this): chapter 12
precision the address that must be put on the cover, in order to have it reach its destination safely. Here is a specimen address:-- Sergeant John J. Smith, Company A., 19th Mass. Regiment, Second brigade, Second Division, Second Corps, Army of the Potomac, Stevensburg, Va. Care Capt. James Brown. As a matter of fact much of this address was unnecessary, and the box would have arrived just as soon and safely if the address had only included the name, company, and regiment, with Washington, D. C., added, for everything was forwarded from that city to army headquarters, and thence distributed through the army. But the average soldier wanted to make a sure thing of it, and so told the whole story. The boxes sent were usually of good size, often either a shoe-case or a common soap-box, and were rarely if ever less than a peck in capacity. As to the contents, I find on the back of an old envelope a partial list of such articles ordered at some period in the service. I giv
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