Saturday, July 21, 2012

Temporary Delay for Blog in Real Time

I have to delay future posts.  I am traveling east to attend the Civil War Seminar in Chambersburg.

Here is the link.
 
http://www.chambersburg.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/antietamonline.pdf

I will do some "catch-up" posts when I return.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Blog In Real Time - July 16, 1862

- I apologize for being a bit behind with these posts.  I'm fighting a cold, etc.


July 16 was the anniversary of the regiments muster in date.  



Warrenton Va., July 16, 1862.

            One year has fled since we first pledged ourselves to support the Constitution and the Laws if need be with the sacrifice of our lives.  If many of the men have changed their minds in some respect on certain points during the last year, it is simply because certain contingencies have arisen over which they had no control.  Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.  Those who are already in the field by taking a backward glance, see much to discourage them,–that which all supposed would certainly be accomplished still remains undone.  In fact appearances indicate that the struggle is commencing.  Untold sufferings have been endured patiently and without complaint, hope cheering us on to the final success; we reach the goal only to find ourselves driven back by superior numbers, forced to retreat day after day, leaving our killed and wounded in the hands of the enemy, all our original plans have been overthrown, and had our army been under the command of almost any other man than General George B. McClellan, the entire force would have been captured or cut to pieces.  Our position is secure for the present; we will soon enter upon another line of operation–time will show with what success.

            A short time since we had as many or more troops than we wanted, the call has now been made for three hundred thousand more, and why is this?  Because the full resources of the rebel government was not understood!  It would seem scarcely possible that we could be so blind, when we know that every setting sun was strengthening the rebel army through the conscription act of the dictators.  The rebels have to-day a larger force in the field by hundreds of thousands than we have.  We have been doing but little, while they have thrown their whole soul into the work.

            As another large army has been called for, the time has again come for the lovers of the Union to show their patriotism, there if more than enough bone and muscle left to answer to the call.  The question is will they respond as freely as did the volunteers of last year?  Is there not a little doubt in the minds of our rulers in regard to this?  If not, why double the bounty?  Are those able bodied men at home any better or any worthier than those men who are now at the seat of war?  Do they possess less patriotism?  One might suppose so from the means used to get them --- come over and help us.  Are their hearts more tender, their love of wife and children more strong than ours?  If not why is it that means are used to raise them a year since?  A civil war is supposed to affect the whole country, each individual man, woman and child will of necessity feel its effects.  Why then should not all do all they can, be it ever so little, to crush the monster which has caused it.

            The three years volunteers feel sore when they look upon the action taken in relation to the raising of more troops.

            In my opinion, instead of going towards Richmond, we shall have our full before long in taking care of “stonewall Jackson.”  When he left for Richmond, he said he should come back, and most of us believe he will be here at no very distant day.

Azof.
(Roxbury City Gazette; July 24, 1862; pg. 2, col. 7.)

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Blog in Real Time, July 11, 1862, Warrenton, VA

This one is a little late...

Headquarters, Hartsuffs Brigade.
     Near Warrenton Va  July 11 1862.
Dear Father
Your letter of the 7th Inst reached me yesterday.  My letter of the 6th to Mother was then of course on the way.  It noted my safe arrival. Our camp here is pitched on excellent ground.  A beautiful and cold spring adjoins the camp which in part feeds the brook where we wash.  A short distance from the camp is quite a large run, and a Sulphur Spring, the water of which I frequently imbibe.  Cherries and blackberries grow in great profusion, sufficient for the whole brigade. I have to speak now however of other matters. The recent call of the national government for 300,000 men makes it the duty of Massachusetts to raise a large number for the field.  The Governor has called upon the different cities & towns of the commonwealth to furnish each their quota to fill up the gallant but thinned regiments now in the field and for the organization of new regiments.  It is difficult to say whether the old or new regiments will be more attractive to recruits.  It should seem that those earnestly wishing to engage in the combats of the war would join regiments now in the field whose names have become distinguished by the conduct of both officers and men in the late conflicts. And yet there are other reasons which would induce many to prefer the new regiments where one feels more at home and the military equal of his comrades. The older regiments in the field which were raised at a time when the ardor for the war was warmer than it is now certain many men who if at home would be efficient workers in the raising of the new regiments, and who by their experience would be more competent to do their work faithfully. The impossibility however of obtaining furloughs at this period will keep these men back in their regiments, and unless they have friends at home to look after their promotion and their interests, the places which they might well fill and for which they have been fitted by a years campaigning will be given to those who have remained at home while their brothers were toiling far away in the service of their country. It is now more than a year, a year last May since I went to Fort Independence a member of the 4th Battalion of Rifles.  Circumstances being then favorable to my obtaining a place in the 16th Regt. I declined a corporal’s warrant which was offered me in my own regiment & took a discharge from my battalion. I afterwards however joined the company again as a private and went with it to the seat of war.  Promotion has been slow.  But one corporal has been made since we left, our orderly being promoted Sergeant Major.  Promotion is therefore hopeless. With Eight corporals and five sergeants in a company where is the chance for a private?  Only out of the Regiment it is plain, & through the efforts of his friends. It seems hard that those who first volunteered in the service of the flag in our humble position should be debarred? from rising higher while those who came after them reap easily the honors which were open to them had they been more careful of their own interests. It appears that the organization of the new Regiments is conducted in some what different principles from that of the old ones, and that the services of those who have campaigned are not in demand.  I saw yesterday a secret circular from the Governor of Mass. To the ColonelsS of Mass. regiments in the fields.  It was shown me by a friend under the promise of secrecy.  It asks the Colonels to send to the adjutant Generals office the names of those who are distinguished for merit among the noncoms and privates to be promoted to positions in the new Regiments, and the Captain to send in the names of those suitable for promotion. The circular thus says in effect that many commissions are to be awarded to those in the field fitted to receive them, but who are debarred by their present position from the chances open to them at home. The Colonels send in but a few names – ten I think. Of course a private, like myself, who is to the Colonel but as one of a thousand men can have no hope of being one of the lucky men to receive the recommendation. Nor should I fare better with the Captain, whose rank I respect, but not his fitness or abilities as a soldier.  There has been no opportunity in our regiment for any one to distinguish himself, for we have not had the fortune to be put in that place where private merit makes itself conspicuous. Even the best solder, cultivated & genial spirit, is but one of the hundreds of men who do their duty faithfully & well.  Nor even is he who is best fitted for promotion the one who is promoted in the company, but other reasons among which may be the friendship of the Captain, whose character may be repulsive to his best men, stands prominent. It is natural that a Captain should favor his friends, and if he nominated any as worthy of promotion, he would, and rightly too, name those of his non commissioned officers who had discharged their duties most faithfully.  The Colonel’s only Knowledge of men is from the officers’ and from contact with some of the highest of the non commissioned officers. No one Knows better than he the difficulty of selection of men suitable to be promoted. It has been said of him that he remarked of his regiment that he had a hundred men more fit to be commissioned officers, than the majority of those who came out as officers of the Regiment. The Colonel does not know me and I have done nothing to call his attention to me more than to any one else in the Reg’t. He knows man capable men and good soldiers whose conduct he has remarked and whose merit he will reward.  I have then to look out of the regiment. At home I should be well provided with recommendations.  Lt.Col. Meacham of the 16th who interested himself in me before I came out and who I believe is now wounded would recommend me as also would Major C. Peleg Chandler of the 1st mass.  I was a member of the drill club of the first named officer before I joined the battalion and guarded the arsenal with him and had frequent conversations wit him at Camp Cameron.
All the friends with whom I once drilled at Cambridge including about 20 in my own class, who are now in the army are there as officers. Some of them as the lamented Lowell have distinguished themselves by honorable service & found death a fate in battle.  More illustrious end to well spent young man-hood who could desire!  Who for their sakes would wish to recall them from their youthful slumbers?
Since things are so it would seem to be a favorable moment to press my claims to notice as a candidate for a commission in one of the newly organized regiments.  If a liberal education is any acquisition to an officer of the experience of a years hard, active, varied service(?) is any qualification for an officer, if sobriety and gentlemanly traits (qualities how infrequent, or rather how not over and above common in the offices of our volunteer army) are what an officer should possess then am I far more qualified to sustain the position of an officer than many who are now in the service and are constantly being added to it.  I have not the influence, or the audacity to press my claims before his excellency the Governor, but if he desires those who have seen service rather than men in civil life to officer his regiments, my name is at his disposal. If he is influenced in his choice of officers by such matters as a liberal education, I offer him that. But I would have it understood that rather than not fight at all, I am ready to finish as I began a year ago last May, indeed last March, an humble private in our splendid army, & if I am to die out here by sickness, or the bullet, I am content to have it said that I fell doing the duty I was ordered to do in the hope that my county might once more become a united nation.
Two men from Co. D. received appointments to day in the new regiments.  Perhaps I have before stated that Stimpson will probably receive a commission in the    regular army. So Lowell & Howe are gone.  They were both gallant officers and of urbane manners and their Class (for I may also place Howe with 58) mourns them, & to their friends their loss is irreparable.  Who shall say however that they were not fortunate?  An honorable life is not measured by length of years and glory is not always with grey hair. Duce et cecomum est pro patra non, and especially is this the case before age has worn away the ardor of youth.
     In haste Your Aff. Son
                   John B. Noyes.

Monday, July 9, 2012

Blog in Real Time, July 7-8, 1862


I post two letters describing the regiments activities around the 4th of July, the summer of 1862 - B.F.
Letter of Private John B. Noyes, Co. B
Sunday July 6th 1862, Near Warrenton Junction Va
Dear Stephen
On the 4th of July instead of going into Boston and staring at the country girls from one of the benches of the mall of Boston Common, as of old or instead of doing escort duty for the City Government of Boston and imbibing huge drafts of brandy and water, I packed up my Knapsack and started with our Division for Warrenton, (not Warrenton Junction) Va.  The first day brought us to beyond Gainsville, the second to near Warrenton.  Both days were sweltering.  To day beats them both, for here even in the shade the perspiration drops from my forehead. This A.M. I went to see the town. It is quite a large place, said to contain 3000 people.  But this must be an exaggeration, for although it is a much prettier place than Martinsburgh it does not seem to be so large.  There are many very pretty private residences here, a few very pretty girls, none of whom I have as yet spoken to.  Indeed to have never made up to any Virginia damsel.  The place is said to be quite a fashionable resort in the summer months on account of its sulphur springs.  The rebs skedaddled out of town last Thursday, perhaps they went to Richmond.
By the way yesterday at a halt the general announced the capture of Richmond by our forces, Beauregard as prisoner and 27000 rebels captives.   I wait patiently to see the newspapers, hoping that the report is true, though fearing it may not be.  Please send me a file of the Herald, covering the whole fight of Seven or more days.  The Philadelphia Enquirer, which I am only able to purchase sees nothing but Pennsylvania troups and beslobbers them often with undeserved praise.  By this time you may have seen Wm. H. Rice A.B. Columbia College, late orderly of Co.D. N.Y. 9th.  You will find him a hale and well met fellow excellent in head and hart and thoroughly posted in all matters connected with camp life, having entered Martinsburgh with Gen’l Patterson last Summer, and having since continued in the service. I shall miss his company much. You may consider this as a letter of introduction for my sudden departure from Warrenton on the 4th inst prevented me from writing a note of introduction and delivering it to Rice himself.  Mr. Rice will give you an envelope containing a set of studs made from laurel dug up from the battle field of Manassas near where the charge of the Black Horse Cavalry was made. The studs are in rather rough condition but you can easily have them cut to your fancy.  I should have had them better finished had I had time.  Some of our men have B & R cut on them, signifying Bull Run, Others B. 13th M.V.  If you had been a smoker I should have tried to obtain a pipe.  Between a rings & a set of studs I though you would prefer the latter.
In haste Yours Truly,
              John B. Noyes.
 Letter of James Ramsey, Co. E

Warrenton  Va  July 7th 62
Dear Mother
     I now find my self writing to the light of a candle which is stuck in the neck of a bottle and curiously fastened to the ridgepole of our tent so as to hang, like a chandelier, in the centre of our tent.  To day has been very hot and oppressive and we have to thank our stars that we have not had to march.  In the morning after breakfast I commenced the order of the day, in the first place I took my towel and soap and in company with my bed fellow or in other words my tent fellow, started for quite a large brook near our camp, to have a swim and rest myself in the shade of the trees overhanging the brook    after enjoying a good bath and feeling somewhat refreshed we agreed to go and get some cherries which are very plenty and in fact I never saw as many in my life and I can almost say with impunity, I have never eaten as many as I have during the last four days since leaving Manassas.  It did not take us long before we had our fill of nice black cherries and were on the way back to camp as visions of beef steak arose before us and seemed to nerve us on; on our way we came to a sulpher spring which was not very strong but cleer as christal and most as cold as ice, it was in the center of a group of fine shady trees.

     The spring is forced up through the trunk of a gum tree cut close to the ground which was done some twelve years ago    so a slave on the farm of the owner of the spring told us.  He further told us that his master was a very wealthy and aristocratic man and owned two hundred slaves, he is now a quarter master in the rebel army, so much for a rebel.   After dinner we saw there was prospects of a shower or thunder storm as it soon proved to be, and concluded to make ourselves as comfortable as possible, so my companion agreed to get the boards if I got the poles and fixed the tent, while he was after the boards I raised the tent a foot from the ground which made it resemble a bedstead with the boards for slats and bed together.  Soon the storm broke upon us but was of short duration  we all the time was pretty well sheltered from it which full paid us for our pains.

     On account of the thunder storm we did not have a dress parade only a roll call which to us seemed the best of the two. We have had Tattoo and Taps and my candle is still burning but I suppose it would be proper me to retire and I now bid you good night.  

     To morrow I will tell you how I spent the fourth of July.

July 8th 1862.     To day it is quite cool and a fine breeze blowing  I have just got back from berring and on my way I visited the sulpher spring and took a bath.  Early on the morning of the fourth of  July we received orders to be ready to march by eight-o’clock   much to the disappointment of a great many who were expecting to have a good time and fire works in the evening, myself among the number.  The camps of the 90th Penn and 26th New York (Rickets brigade) were trimmed up in grand stile with evergreen, they being to work all day the day before, they were also expecting friends from Washington and they felt disappointed to be called on to march   I don’t think there was a bit of need of it as we are lying idle at Warrenton.

     I do not know as I have got any thing more to write in this letter.

     I send my love to all   Kiss Hugh for me  I still remain your affectionate son
James
P.S. Write soon   Pray for me that I may remain faithfull

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Blog in Real Time, July 5, 1862


Westboro Transcript
July 5, 1862

Communications
Marlboro, June 28th, 1862

Ms. Editor; - Having just returned from a visit to Manassas, now the camp ground of McDowell’s division, with which the 13th Mass. Reg. is connected, it may be interesting to the friends of our two companies to know what I saw in camp and Hospital.  I am satisfied from what I saw that a soldier’s life in war is no holiday life.  Those who speak of a soldier’s pay as sufficient compensation for the service he renders, and the toils and privations he undergoes, had better try a three years enlistment and then wee what they think.  I am more satisfied than ever before, that the additional pay given by the State to our volunteers was deserved.  The only thing that I regret is that it is so little and so limited in its application.  Additional pay should have been given to every Massachusetts volunteer, though I admit a distinction between those who have families and the single man would be highly proper.  It is a burning shame for us who stay at home and enjoy the blessings of civilized life to grudge (?) the payment a few dollars to those unselfish and patriotic men who have thrown themselves into the gap and stand bravely between us and the destruction of everything we hold dear.

When I arrived in camp I found about fifteen thousand men encamped on the plains of Manassas.  They were resting after their severe toils form long and forced marches, under heavy burdens, with short allowance, and under great exposure, being a part of the time wholly without tents, storming as it was.   They were now enjoying what may be termed the bright side of a soldier’s life.  It did my hear good to see the general cheerfulness that pervaded the camps, and I could but wonder how men could be so cheerful after such hardships, especially as many men were actually suffering from cramps, rheumatism and fever engendered by their late exposures, an which exposures were liable to be renewed tomorrow.  It is however partially explained by a casual remark of one of our soldiers, ‘we know not what will turn up to-morrow, and we have endured so much, we care but little.’

The first twwo days I was in camp and the first night the weather was delightful, the ground was dry, and there was much comparative comfort throughout the camp.  On the afternoon of the second day there were unmistakable signs of a Virginia tempest.  The soldiers were called out for brigade drill, but they came back double-quick before five.  They were hardly in when the tempest came in earnest.  It was terrific in lightning and thunder and wind and rain.  In three hours, it is speaking within bounds to say that on a level the water on the surface of the entire campground would have measured?  there than an inch in depth besides what had soaked into the earth, making the entire surface a complete mush of mud.  About nine o’clock, P. M. some of the officers desired me to go through the camp that I might tell when I returned to Massachusetts, what I saw on the plains of Manassas. I went through the camp of the 13th Mass. Reg.  The violence of the tempest had overturned several of their tents, and all were thoroughly drenched.  Their little shelter tents are scarcely better than no tents.  They consist of a piece of cloth five feet square.  When a man camps by himself, he sets up two stakes, five feet apart and a little  over two feet in height, and then places a ridge-pole, five feet long on the top of these stakes, hangs his piece of cloth over this ridge-pole, and then pulling the corners as wide apart as he can, fastens them to the ground by pegs.  Thus he makes himself a little Tom Thumb canvass house, with both gables open.  Under his best estate the soldier cannot sit upright in his tend, but must crawl in on all fours, an dif he happens tot be over five feet long, either his head or his feet must be our.  If he lowers the ridge of his tent he can get a little more width at the bottom, but this gives him a flatter roof, through which the rain will run as through a sieve.  But it is not common for one to tent alone.  These tents are made so as to button on to each other – say three agree to button on, as they term it, tow button their tents together making a length of about ten feet, the third buttons his tend on to one of the gables and thus they form the best shelter that can possibly be made with these tents.  These tents are not so good for shelter or for comfort any way as ordinary dog kennels.  Yet under such shelters the brave champions of liberty and right and good government are obliged to crawl. Here were men coming down with typhoid fevers, rheumatism, dysentery &c. all drenched through, and obliged to lie there, with the water overflowing the bottom of their tents, and the rain sifting through the top.  God save the country that uses her brave defenders thus – for I fear men will not.  Massachusetts did not furnish her men thus; this regiment has good Sibley tents that would shelter them from the storm, but these are packed away somewhere.  This regiment had a train of wagons and ambulances that any regiment might be proud of – but these have all been taken from them, and there ins not one left to carry a pound of the burdens of the worn-out soldier, or bear his sick body a mile – but if a man falls by the way, four of his comrades must bear him along on a piece of canvass, or he must be left on the way.

All this is said to be done because McDowell has had a mortal fear of baggage wagons since the battle of Bull Run.  When the men crept out in the morning to rekindle their camp fires and dry themselves and get their breakfasts, they were a sorry looking act.  But they seemed to put the bright side out, for when I asked them if this did not give them the rheumatism, they said it did some, and that cramp terribly, but they added, after we have stirred round awhile and got warm we shall feel all right.  Such treatment of men as this may be a common concomitant of war, but if it is, war ought not to be an agency necessary to civilization; but if it is a necessary agency to civilization, then certainly civilization ought to be willing to offer more than thirteen dollars a month for meant to meet the dread necessity.  I slept in camp, I ate in camp, and I write what I saw.  I believe, to say nothing of the suffering of the men, that by this one storm, or rather tempest, more property was lost from the want of proper shelter than would be sufficient to furnish the entire encampment with proper tents.  The rations of the men were very good in camp, though on their marches they had suffered much from lack of food.

They said they had often been hungry whilst obliged to guard the probperty of persons they knew to be secessionists.  The universal testimony in regard to the people saouth where they had been was that there were but few, if any real Union men there.  RThey think it will take Uncle Sam a long time to coax his obstreperous children back into the old family circle.  I think the sentiment is gaining ground among the masses of the soldiery that the institution which is the fundamental cause of all this trouble must be rooted out before this war can end, thought I must say there was a tenderness, even yet, in some quarters on this question that I was sorry to see.  Some men see to think that they cannot save the Union  and the Constitution without slavery, as though human slavery was an essential element in the government instituted by our revolutionary fathers, the apostles of liberty.  Such men forget that the framers of the Constitution intentionally so worded that great instrument as that slavery might fade out in the country, and yet the Constitution remain intact.  IF all our generals came up to the sentiments which the brave Gen. Rousseau of Kentucky, lately expressed at a banquet given him at Louisville, this war would soon be ended.  Though a slaveholder, he seems to be a man for the times.  Speaking of closing this contest, he says, ‘But the negro stands in the way, ins spite of all that can be done or said.  Sanding before the eye of the secessionist, the negro hides all the blessings of our government, throwing a black shadow on the sun itself.  IF it had b4een any other species of property that stood in the way, the army, provoked as it has been, would willingly have seen its quick destruction.’    ‘Slavery is not worth our government.  It is not worth our liberty.  It is not worth all the precious blood now poured out for freedom.  It is not worth the free navigation of the Mississippi River.”  Let all Union men talk in this style, and act as bravely and decidedly as Gen. Rousseau has acted, and the country is saved; the Union will stand and liberty will be preserved.

I visited most of the hospitals at Alexandria, and searched out all our Marlboro boys I could find. Our sick were all doing well.  The hospitals were neat and airy, and well supplied.  Yet these neat hospitals are sad sights to look upon.  Each one who has a friend or relation in the army can imagine all I would say. ‘Here,’ said an attendant to me, ‘they come in, and hence they go out; and here is one just going out.’  I looked:  a short breath or two, and he was gone.  Yet the brave fellows lying there by thousands, weak and disabled, said with a momentary animation on their countenances, ‘if we could have pitched into those scoundrels last fall when we had our full strength, we would have whipped them though we wee raw recruits; but it is over with many of us now.’  He, in my view, who endures cheerfully and with fortitude, pains and sickness engendered by the hardships of war, is not less worthy of respect than he who meets danger courageously on the battle-field.

I wish to express through our paper, my sincere thanks to Maj. Gould, Lieuts. Palmer, Pope, and Brown, Dr. Claflin, and Wagoner J. Morse, and to all our Marlboro boys, for their kind attention to my comfort whilst I was in camp.

O. W. A.

NOTE:  (O.W.A. is O. W. Albee of the town of Marlboro, (perhaps a selectmen?)).

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Blog in Real Time, Manassas Jctn, July 1, 1862


The following was downloaded from the now defunct website LETTERS OF THE CIVIL WAR.

Manassas Junction, Va., July 1, 1862.

            June 28th, was sultry–made a visit to Bull Run.  Something new and interesting meets the eye at every step; we passed three graves, the headstones were demolished either by accident or by some sacrilegious hand.  Enough remained to tell us the State they hailed from, also the regiment to which they belonged.  South Carolina’s sons had found a resting-place on the soil of Old Virginia.  One cannot but be astonished at the great number of rifle pits, which are scattered in all parts of the plain, every knoll from which the least advantage was to be gained, was brought into requisition.  No one point have I visited a second time, yet the same preparation to meet the foe is visible.  One fortification about two miles from our camp, was intended to mount twenty-four guns.  Perhaps these earth works may yet come in use.

            Bull Run Creek is easily forded at the present time.  Its waters are shaded by time honored trees, seemingly the growth of centuries.  Along its banks lie huge trunks of trees fast hastening to decay, reminding one of fallen greatness.  The heavy freshets which sweep with irresistible power through the narrow channel of the creek, pile upon either side a vast amount of refuse trash; trees, the roots of which laid here by wash of flowing stream, stand tottering o’er its bed, present to the eye a scene of rugged grandeur.

            If nothing happens to prevent, we shall have plenty of blackberries in a few days; the ground is covered with them.

            At six o’clock P.M. we had the pleasure of being introduced to a most laborious Battalion drill which lasted until dark.  To-morrow being Sunday we shall have our usual rest.

            Sunday 29th.  Cloudy, looks like rain which will be very acceptable should drill be the order of the day.  At 7 o’clock A.M., inspection, after which, strange to say, we have nothing to do until 5 o’clock P.M., at which time we assembled to listen to a few remarks from our Chaplain, and finished the light duties of the day with dress parade.  The text selected by our Chaplain was taken from a work of Dickens, “Let us be jolly;” briefly he pointed out the folly of giving way to a feeling of discouragement–urged upon all the necessity of bearing up under the various trials to which they might be subjected–thought that even if a man could not laugh and grow fat upon an empty stomach, he could at least be cheerful by looking forward to the meal that would fill it.  ’Tis all right to give good advise, but very hard at times to follow out those words of encouragement.  The influence of our Chaplain is great, and is always used for the benefit of the regiment.  His cheerful happy disposition is contagious, looking upon the bright side of things himself, his example causes all to follow in his footsteps.

            As night is fast drawing her mantle over us, we must close.  Trusting ourselves to the watchful care of the sentinel, we enter our tents perfectly satisfied with this day’s work.

Azof.
(Roxbury City Gazette; July 10, 1862; pg. 2, col. 6.)