Camp Vermont, Va.,

November 23, 1862

Dear Parents:

The regimental teams have been set to drawing timber for us to stockade our tents with, although as they take the companies in succession ours had not yet got any. I saw Uncle Joseph this noon. He had been detailed to chop for his company and had come in for his dinner. It did not seem to make him feel as bad as I supposed it would, but he seemed to consider it a necessity that could not be avoided as they could not have the use of the teams after today. Speaking of teams, I would say army horses, taken as a class, are the most forlorn specimens of animated nature that I ever saw without exception. When the boys feel particularly uncomfortable they sometimes say that the nigger is the first thing cared for then a mule, then a soldier. But it ain't so, for

Though I won't say anything about the nigs, I will say that army horses and mules fare worse than anything else on the face of creation. The cavalry horses don't look as though they are capable of anything faster than a walk or at best a very slow trot. The cavalry men say that their horses are not supposed to eat but twice a day while they are not supposed to eat at all.

Did I in any former letter tell you about Wayland Bishop being taken prisoner by the rebels in a late skirmish down somewhere near Bull Run? Having digressed this far I will try and return to the subject you commenced upon and tell you about the tents. We are to raise them some four feet from the ground on a stockade of timber which will give us a great deal more room than we now have. The stockade is set in the ground deep enough to make it firm and then the cracks are plastered with Virginia mud which makes excellent mortar, while any little conveniences that we can ourselves devise we will of course be entitled to. Some of the boys buy stoves to warm their houses with while others get bricks and build fireplaces to suit themselves.

We have had another journey to Alexandria under the following circumstances. On the 17th we received orders to march to Fort Albany for a division review on the following day and at the same time received orders to be ready to march at an hour's notice. During the night it rained considerably so that as we marched along, the "sacred soil" transformed itself into a sort of paste usually called mud which in some places was four or five inches deep and so stiff and sticky as to almost pull off your boots! When the boys would raise their feet it would make a noise almost as loud as the crack of a pistol, while in other places the mud was only about an inch deep and about as thin as porridge. After marching about a half a mile or so beyond Alexandria the colonel received orders to march his regiment back to camp. Accordingly, we were headed around and started for home again. Got back into camp about eleven o'clock, tireder if not wiser men. Having marched at least eight miles since we left home in the morning and we were just in time, for we had not been in camp much over an hour when it commenced raining by the bucket full as it occasionally does in Vermont when you have a particularly severe thundershower. At the first clash it beat through our tent some, but we spread out a rubber blanket or two and thus managed to keep ourselves and our things dry and nice. Indeed, our tents are a much greater protection against rain than you would suppose. Still I had rather hear the rain rattle on a shingle roof than to hear it beating against the roof of our tent.

Isn't it cold in Vermont now? the ground froze quite hard here last night although it didn't freeze under me as I slept just as warm as toast, and today is a clear cloudless, beautiful day, Just such an one as you sometimes have in October. I went over to the 14th the other night with some of my tent mates. M.A. Ives and Harrison Earl were both sick and in the hospital and I happened to go into the Bates boys tent (Warner Bates' sons), and there ran across a man that used to know you. I asked him who he was and he proved to be Simon Sawyer that used to live on the Jones place. You remember him, of course. Our company is getting to be somewhat reduced by details, there being six now permanently detailed from the company. Clark has been appointed Sgt. of the ambulance corps and one other man has been appointed ambulance driver. Blood is in the commissary department and Crain and two others act as waiters for the field officers. There has not been a single death in the regiment since it first came together at Brattleboro. I think we have been very lucky in that respect don't you? A11 the other regiments have lost more or less from sickness and accidents. I expect we shall have to go out on picket soon and certainly hope that the weather will be as fine as at present. The fourteenth had a dubious time the last time they were out, besides having one of their men accidentally shot.

If you can get plenty of postage stamps there now you may send me a few, say, to the amount of the enclosed U.S. scrip which is the only change we can get here, except "Sutters' Shinplasters", and they, like the Sutters themselves are a nuisance. I haven't got hold of a bit of silver since we were paid off at Brattleboro, where I got 80 cents of the genuine article, for which 'twas said the State paid 29 percent premium. I believe I never wrote you about being mustered for two months pay while we were on Arlington Heights, but we were, though we haven't got the greenbacks yet. From this I conclude that the Gov't intends to pay us from the date of our organization whether our nine months commenced then or not. Some are thinking that our nine months term of service commenced when we were organized but I don't know how it will be. Do you know anything about it? Anything certain I mean, but be it as it may, one month of our time is gone.

We are having a few hard crackers now for variety. I suppose they certainly are not bad eating unless the bread is poor and wormy. Those that we have are first rate. What are all the Plymouthites about this pleasant autumnal weather? Not digging their potatoes, I hope. We have got to go on battalion drill at 2.30 a.m. and will not get off until near 5, so I must close. If you cannot get the stamps handily you need not mind, as I can get them here. Yours truly, H. G Day

---

Contributed by Linda M. Welch, Dartmouth College, Windsor County researcher.

Return to the Index of Hezron's letters..

See also Hezron's biography, and his memoir of the Gettysburg Campaign.