Thursday, June 14, 2012

1862 June 15 Camp Alexander


                                                 June 15th
     It is all very well, my dear Mother, to say “take
good care of yourself,” but “tis far easier to advise
than to do so in camp life -     When we first
reached here, we slept in the mud and if we did not
wake up in the morning to find a piece of live pork
sleeping alongside of us, we felt favored.       Now,

                                                                                        
     however, we are comfortable, board floors and other luxuries
being in fashion.                             The weather for several days
past has been oppressively warm, and officers and men
are very indignant at being ordered out to drill at mid-
day in [‘such’ lined out] a broiling sun.         It is certainly very
stupid, and many of the men have been laid up through
it.
     (Another letter of the same date as the preceding.)
                                                 Camp Alexander
                                                 June 15th 1862.
- - - - When we first arrived here, we were marched out
to our present encampment, and could get no tents for
two days.         The weather was raw and chilly, and it
rained almost incessantly -              We were obliged to
sleep in the mud, and consequently many of us – I
among this number – were laid up with fever and chills.
Now, however, we have first rate tents, and the officer’s have
board floorings, so we are very comfortable -                 We got
up a mess, [several words inked out] among the officers, but our           
cook fed us so poorly, sole leather and some thing he called
cabbage, every day being the sum and substance of the
refreshment provided for the inner man, that we
had to break up, and search for boarding-places
outside the camp.                         I am one of the best –off,
I find by visiting the tables of the others, as I am well fed,


but, like the rest, have to put up with a slatternly land-
lady, a painfully dirty table cloth, greasy plates, and dirty
glasses -      I always take with me a clean pocket-
handkerchief, and wipe plates and glasses thoroughly
before using them; to the great amusement of my
worthy hostess, a war-widow –
                                             
George Hazen Dana, 1837-1919, of the 32nd Massachusetts, an aide-de-camp to General Napoleon Jackson Tecumseh Dana.

[transcript by Mary Roy Dawson Edwards]

MSS 5130

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