Hardtack and coffee : $b or, the unwritten story of Army life, including chapters on enlisting, life in tents and log huts, jonahs and beats, offences and punishments, raw recruits, foraging, corps and corps badges, the wagon trains, the Army mule, the Engineer Corps, the Signal Corps, etc. — John Shaqi
Hardtack and coffee : $b or, the unwritten story of Army life, including chapters on enlisting, life in tents and log huts, jonahs and beats, offences and punishments, raw recruits, foraging, corps and corps badges, the wagon trains, the Army mule, the Engineer Corps, the Signal Corps, etc.Billings, John Davis
History
Hardtack and coffee : $b or, the unwritten story of Army life, including chapters on enlisting, life in tents and log huts, jonahs and beats, offences and punishments, raw recruits, foraging, corps and corps badges, the wagon trains, the Army mule, the Engineer Corps, the Signal Corps, etc.
Billings, John Davis
Billings, John Davis, 1842-1933; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Personal narratives; United States. Army -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865; United States. Army -- Military life -- History -- 19th century
The provision made for the shelter of these troops before they took
the field was varied. Some of them were quartered at Forts Warren
and Independence while making ready to depart. But the most of the
Massachusetts volunteers were quartered at camps established in different
parts of the State. Among the earliest of these were Camp Andrew, in
West Roxbury, and Camp Cameron, in North Cambridge. Afterwards camps
were laid out at Lynnfield, Pittsfield, Boxford, Readville, Worcester,
Lowell, Long Island, and a few other places. The “Three-months militia”
required no provision for their shelter, as they were ordered away soon
after reporting for duty. Faneuil Hall furnished quarters for a part of
them one night. The First Massachusetts Regiment of Infantry quartered
for a week in Faneuil Hall; but, this not being a suitable place for so
large a body of men to remain, “on the first day of June the regiment
marched out to Cambridge, and took possession of an old ice-house on the
borders of Fresh Pond, which had been procured by the State authorities
and partially fitted up for barracks, and established their first camp.”
But this was not the first camp established in the State, for three years
troops had already been ordered into camp on Long Island and at Fort
Warren.
[Illustration: READVILLE (MASS.) BARRACKS.
_From a Photograph._]
Owing to the unhealthiness of the location selected for the First
Regiment, their stay in it was brief, and a removal was soon had to North
Cambridge, where, on a well-chosen site, some new barracks had been
built, and, in honor of President Lincoln’s Secretary of War, had been
named “Camp Cameron.”
Barracks then, it will be observed, served to shelter some of the troops.
To such as are not familiar with these structures, I will simply say
that they were generally a long one-storied building not unlike a
bowling-alley in proportions, having the entrance at one end, a broad
aisle running through the centre, and a double row of bunks, one above
the other, on either side. They were calculated to hold one company of a
hundred men. Some of these buildings are still to be seen at Readville,
Mass., near the old campgrounds. But while barracks were desirable
quarters in the cooler weather of this latitude, and sheltered many
regiments during their stay in the State, a still larger number found
shelter in tents prior to their departure for the field. These tents were
of various patterns, but the principal varieties used were the _Sibley_,
the _A_ or _Wedge Tent_, and the _Hospital_ or _Wall Tent_.
[Illustration: SIBLEY TENTS.]
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