(Letter No 4)

 

Q.M. Office Camp Randall

29th Regt Wis. Vols. Oct. 18, 1862

Madison Wisconsin

 

My dear Sister,

I have a distinct recollection of a young lady writing a complaint because she did not have her letters answered. I ask where is your "No 4"? (I believe my last was No 3, if not correct me. at any rate I am ahead) Who is ahead? Who is the debtor and who the creditor? I have more leisure now and just set about answering my letters. I have not much to write but I shall scratch off something. You will be glad to hear I am in first rate health and getting along very well. The Regt have now their uniforms, knapsacks, haversacks & canteens so that we in our department are more at rest and I propose to enjoy myself a little. The Q.M. has a horse here and I am agoing to ride him often that I may become used to such. I have been so busy I have not calld upon Mr. Muldoon's people & my other friends here. Monday the guns will be on hand and I think we will be moving in about a week. We shall probably go to Washington or directly south. We are to have the best pattern of the Springfield Rifle—very lucky. The first Regt of the State I think that have had that gun. As my last letter bears date the 13th I do not see as I can better fill this sheet than to describe our camp. 

 

We are encamped about a mile from the State House, wh. is situated about in the heart of the city, and just at the edge of the city. Our camp is on the Fair Grounds which is about as large as the Fair Grounds at M. and enclosed with just such a fence. About half of this lot is a gentle slope down to a moderately level flat. This is the situation of the ground and buildings 

 

[rectangular diagram enumerating: Stables & Barracks of the 30th; Chaplain's Tent, Magazine, Q.M. 29, Hospital 20th, Doct Office, Medicine, Hospital 29th; QM 30th, Recruits; Col & Officers Quarters of the 29th & 30th; Barracks of the 29th Regt, F I K C B H D G E A, Officers Tents, Barracks of the 30th Regt Gate]

 

In front is the Gate and only entrance. At the left of the Gate and along the side of the fence are six Companies of the 30th. Beside the fence at the right of the entrance are four Companies of the 30th and the horse stables. The troops of the 29th occupy eleven buildings and I have marked the letters of each Co and the place it occupies. Beside each Co is a tent where the Capt & Lieuts stay. Further on & beyond our barracks is a large building which is on the highest ground and was made for the Floral Hall & now occupied by the Q.M. of the 30th and lodging for recruits for old Regts which go and come every day. We held their quarters at first. Nearest to this large building is our Hospital, and next to that the Medicine Room & next the Doctor's of the 29th Office. To the right of that is the Hospital of the 30th and next to our building is / a building containing a lot of ammunition in small box cartridges, and next to the right the Chaplain's tent. A little below & to the right is a long building where the Col & officers of our Regt & the 30th stay. Such is our camp ground. Before our office a sentinal is stationed night and day and his instructions are "let none but officers pass unless we tell him to let them pass. between us and the Magazine is another sentinal who is there night & day to see no one takes any of our boxes. At the Chaplains' Tent, Col Quarters, Hospitals and Doctor's office guards are stationed night and day.

 

This building has three rooms. An office, A store room and my bed room. I sleep on a crick bed having about a half dozen blankets under me and six ten or fifteen as the weather is warm or cold over me. The clerk is a private & sleeps with his Co (I think) (Yes, Co E 7/1 89) Rats abound abundantly about the dwellings & steal our candles if left in reach. The privates sleep in shelves like the shelves of a pantry only boards at the edge to keep them in and of course the shelves are larger and further apart. No one in our Regt is now very sick and very little sickness prevails. I have in fact very little to write but when away and sights I never saw meet my eye I shall probably be able to pen much that is interesting. If we go down into Kentucky or thereabouts I am in hopes through Wm Redfield & Chs Lyman to get in Q.M. somewhere. I eat now with my Company. The privates eat togather and the Sergts eat in the cook room and have extras such as milk, butter &c which / they buy and costs very little. I am looking and hoping every day to see a pistol of father's make. I shall not be to the expense of buying one now for when I get South I can get one for very little from the privates who pick them up, or from confiscated property which all should come into the Q.M. hands. 

 

It is too late now to send me anything or will be when you get this. If we go East I may take my trunks along and send them from Penn. perhaps To morrow is Sunday and I expect to have a good time going to Church for it seems I can shut up to-morrow and have the day to myself. In a letter I read this eve from

a lady who taught in La Crosse when I did she says, Don't you get real homesick sometimes as you go to sleep in your little tents? (she thought we lived in tents) I should think that when you got to thinking of home & brothers & sisters you'd be tempted almost to jump & leave the country to take care of herself." Though I have been too busy to be homesick & do not allow myself to think in such a strain much still, that sentence sank deep into my heart and aroused a deep longing to see the loved ones at home whom I have not seen for most a year. I would hate awfully to be away from home so long that Mother and Father and you all would change so much I could hardly make it seem that you were mine. If I should stay away until Eddie was fifteen it seems as though I could not half love him for he would appear so different from my brother. Well I have spun off a sheet again and said but little, but to be ahead of you is I am determined upon where I have so little to do as I have had for the last two days.

 

Love to All, Your dear brother

John.

 

[margins]

I write to the Sci American to send my paper to father as I shall be on the move too much to get it. Read it and store it away carefully.

 

This letter is to my sister Martha JPD 4/23 1900

SOURCES