The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 45, July, 1861: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
General
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 45, July, 1861: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
Still our fellows manage to be at home as they are. Some of our
model tents are types of the best style of temporary cottages. Young
housekeepers of limited incomes would do well to visit and take heed. A
whole elysium of household comfort can be had out of a teapot,--tin; a
brace of cups,--tin; a brace of plates,--tin; and a frying-pan.
In these days of war everybody can see a camp. Every one who stays at
home has a brother or a son or a lover quartered in one of the myriad
tents that have blossomed with the daffodil-season all over our green
fields of the North. I need not, then, describe our encampment in
detail,--its guard-tent in advance,--its guns in battery,--its
flagstaff,--its companies quartered in streets with droll and fanciful
names,--its officers' tents in the rear, at right angles to the lines of
company-tents,--its kitchens, armed with Captain Vielé's capital army
cooking-stoves,--its big marquees, "The White House" and "Fort Pickens,"
for the lodging and messing of the new artillery company,--its barbers'
shops,--its offices. The same, more or less well arranged, can be seen
in all the rendezvous where the armies are now assembling. Instead of
such description, then, let me give the log of a single day at our camp.
JOURNAL OF A DAY AT CAMP CAMERON, BY PRIVATE W., COMPANY I.
BOOM!
I would rather not believe it; but it is--yes, it is--the morning gun,
uttering its surly "Hullo!" to sunrise.
Yes,--and, to confirm my suspicions, here rattle in the drums and pipe
in the fifes, wooing us to get up, _get up_, with music too peremptory
to be harmonious.
I rise up _sur mon séant_ and glance about me. I, Private W., chance, by
reason of sundry chances, to be a member of a company recently largely
recruited and bestowed all together in a big marquee. As I lift myself
up, I see others lift themselves up on those straw bags we kindly call
our mattresses. The tallest man of the regiment, Sergeant K., is on one
side of me. On the other side I am separated from two of the fattest men
of the regiment by Sergeant M., another excellent fellow, prime cook and
prime forager.
We are all presently on our pins,--K. on those lengthy continuations of
his, and the two stout gentlemen on their stout supporters. The deep
sleepers are pulled up from those abysses of slumber where they had been
choking, gurgling, strangling, death-rattling all night. There is for a
moment a sound of legs rushing into pantaloons and arms plunging into
jackets.
Then, as the drums and fifes whine and clatter their last notes, at the
flap of our tent appears our orderly, and fierce in the morning sunshine
gleams his moustache,--one month's growth this blessed day. "Fall in,
for roll-call!" he cries, in a ringing voice. The orderly can speak
sharp, if need be.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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