Private Fisk of the 2nd Vermont Infantry had fought with the Sixth Corps at Marye’s Heights and Salem Church during the Chancellorsville campaign and been posted to a reserve position at Gettysburg. He wrote from northern Virginia about the routines of camp life and their impact on the civilians living nearby.
Camp near Warrenton, Va.
Aug. 10, 1863
This camp is, I believe, without an official name at present. We are within about five miles of Warrenton, and about two from what was once the village of Waterloo. Warrenton is on your left, and Waterloo on your right as we face the enemy. You will perceive since writing my last we have moved our camp once more. This remarkable event occurred last Wednesday. I cannot say whether it was a military necessity, or a military convenience, or some other motive that prompted the change, but so far as my humble opinion can judge, I think the move a wise and judicious one. We went almost directly back to where we were encamped at first, only swinging in a half a mile or so nearer the Rappahannock. This may not be quite so good a camping place as that, but it is better than the last one, and makes a very acceptable compromise between the two. So, having become somewhat domesticated in our new position, I see no better way of employing one of the fairest mornings here that Virginia ever saw than by writing a line or so to my always welcome visitor, the Freeman. To be sure, nothing has transpired worth noticing, and there is nothing to write about; but incessant talkers and scribblers can generally manage to make themselves sufficiently troublesome without the aid of these superfluous auxiliaries.
Living in camp is a peculiar kind of life, but like every other situation one may become so accustomed to it that the evil and the good bear a relation to each other very nearly approaching to what may be found in almost any other pursuit. It may often seem dull and irksome, imposing burdensome restraints and duties not at all agreeable, but only the croaker will say the days are all dark and cheerless. We certainly have had hardships and privations to endure, and sometimes pretty severe ones, too; but we have also, now and then, a time for sport, joyous, health-inspiring, and full of fun. We have our games of chess, backgammon, draughts, cards, and others, to make merry many a dull, listless hour. We get occasionally a book to read, sometimes a paper, or what is often better than either, a letter from home. These last are the chinks that fill up many a useless, if not burdensome, hour, presenting to the soldier’s mind something tangible that his thoughts will love to dwell upon. Many hours are pleasantly spent in answering these letters, many in visiting our friends in other portions of the camp, many more in fishing and foraging; and thus the day often closes before we are aware or wish to have it.
Since we formed our new camp we have been employed principally in making our tents comfortable and convenient. I would like to introduce the reader in to our camp this morning that he might see what pleasant houses we can improvise at short notice and very little expense. If you can imagine a pole or rail, whichever happens to be the handiest, elevated a little higher than one’s head and held horizontally by two crotches, or by being strapped to two other rails that are perpendicular, which are inserted in the ground, one at each end, you have an idea of the first starting point in putting up a tent. The principal difficulty in all this is to get an ax or hatchet to cut a pole or sharpen the stake that is to be driven into the ground; but sometimes a big jack-knife will answer the purpose. The next thing is to throw our tent, which is nothing more nor less than two pieces of cotton or linen cloth, about five feet square buttoned together, over this ridge-pole and fasten the lower edge, or eaves, to small stakes as near the ground as we have calculated to have the tent come. The boys generally prefer from two to three feet. Here then is a tent for two men. Others can join on to the ends indefinitely, thus making a continual line of tents and have it all one. Along the centre of this we can build our bunks, running lengthwise, if we have tents sufficient, at a convenient height from the ground, making us a good seat or lounge in the day-time, and a bed for the night, or we can build them crosswise, if we prefer, and thus economize the room. Being open all around, the tent has the freest circulation of air, and we escape the unhealthy damp of living on the ground. Some of the boys fix themselves up stands for writing-desks, and cupboards for their cups, plates, and fragments of rations. Many other conveniences are constructed as necessity demands, or ingenuity invents. Generally we provide ourselves with all the proudest aristocrat needs to ask for, while the whole establishment would be costly at five dollars.
But in order to tell the whole story, which seeing I have begun I might as well continue, it will be necessary to speak of the manner in which the boys often procure the boards to build and ornament their singular habitations. The rapid disappearance however of barns and sometimes houses in the vicinity of where a new camp is being formed disclosed the secret. In our last camp the boys had begun to render their location quite pleasant and tasteful, supposing that the promise to stay there was made in good faith, and were quite loth to leave in consequence. Boards were plenty there as the Village had been vacated but not entirely destroyed. Every building there, of whatever description that was not occupied was speedily sacrificed to the boys’ greediness for comfortable tents. They had been polluted with the heresy of secession, and the boys could not be made to feel any compunction for their downfall. As soon as a building was struck it was doomed. The first blow became a signal for a general attack, and soon all that was left would be a few scattering timbers and fragments of boards, while the road to camp would be lined with soldiers sweating under their loads of plunder.
There was one old miller left in the village of Waterloo, and I believe he is the last of his race in that spot. The village was burnt last summer or destroyed when we came, except one negro shanty. It used to contain two stores, a woollen factory besides the grist mill and blacksmith shop. Waterloo is on the Hedgeman river or Rappahannock proper, which stream is the southern boundary of Fauquier County of which Warrenton is the capitol. It is about sixty miles from Washington in a direction a little south of west. It is represented as having been a very thrifty place but like many of her sister towns it has become totally crushed out by this desolating war.
The camp of the 2nd regiment since moving from Waterloo, is on a small ridge crowned with a grove of bushes which unfortunately was not so extensive but that both ends of the regiment extended out into open sunlight. The 3rd, 4th and 6th are camped near by; the 5th are guarding Thompson’s Ford. We have found lumber much more difficult to obtain here than at Waterloo. “But where there is a will there is a way” and where there is plenty of boards only two miles distant, who would be willing to lie in the dirt and go without them? Certainly not Vermonters, if we may judge from the throng that has been continually streaming back to that place over the hills and brooks and coming again with a load such as no lazy man would ever put on his shoulders. The officers had teams to bring their boards, but the men being more independent brought theirs on their backs. By dint of much perseverance and industry we have again established ourselves in camp pretty much to our satisfaction. Next week I may be able to chronicle another move.
Perhaps some one will question the constitutionality of our confiscating secesh boards and buildings in the manner I have described. I can only say it is a way we have of managing affairs here, and our officers had much rather help than hinder us. This morbid tenderness towards secesh property has been stifled by the rebels themselves, in their uncivilized conduct toward Union people when the power has been with them. Still I must confess it looks a little barbarous to go into a man’s door yard, almost, as we did the miller’s at Waterloo and tear down his barn and shed under his very eyes. This “erring brother” could only look demurely on and witness the progress of the destruction; he was powerless to prevent it. But they not only tore down his buildings they carried away his garden fence and ransacked and spoiled his garden. Excuse me reader, but I too went into that garden to help harvest the immature crop, and should have carried out my intentions, perhaps, but when I saw the woman and one of her children looking in sorrowful submission from the window at the wasteful destruction going on in their own garden—and it was a pretty one—my courage failed me, and I withdrew without taking so much as a pod of peas or a handful of potatoes. I never was caught stealing sheep or any thing of that sort, but I fancied I then had a very realizing sense of such a culprit’s self-importance. It is impossible I suppose in war time but that such offences will come, and doubtless, in most cases they are well enough deserved, but when they are to happen to women and children that appear innocent in this case, I thought it would be as safe for me in the end to shirk the responsibility, and let them come through some one else; and certainly it was as consistent with my inclination on this particular occasion. Generally I am not behind when secession sinners are being punished after this fashion.