The
attendants had just straighten'd the limbs, put coppers on the eyes,
and were laying it out.
_The roads_--A great recreation, the past three years, has been in
taking long walks out from Washington, five, seven, perhaps ten miles
and back; generally with my friend Peter Doyle, who is as fond of it
as I am. Fine moonlight nights, over the perfect military roads, hard
and smooth--or Sundays--we had these delightful walks, never to be
forgotten. The roads connecting Washington and the numerous forts
around the city, made one useful result, at any rate, out of the war.
TYPICAL SOLDIERS
Even the typical soldiers I have been personally intimate with,--it
seems to me if I were to make a list of them it would be like a city
directory. Some few only have I mention'd in the foregoing pages--most
are dead--a few yet living. There is Reuben Farwell, of Michigan,
(little "Mitch;") Benton H. Wilson, color-bearer, 185th New York; Wm.
Stansberry; Manvill Winterstein, Ohio; Bethuel Smith; Capt. Simms,
of 51st New York, (kill'd at Petersburgh mine explosion,) Capt. Sam.
Pooley and Lieut. Fred. McReady, same reg't. Also, same reg't., my
brother, George W. Whitman--in active service all through, four
years, re-enlisting twice--was promoted, step by step, (several times
immediately after battles,) lieutenant, captain, major and lieut.
colonel--was in the actions at Roanoke, Newbern, 2d Bull Run,
Chantilly, South Mountain, Antietam, Fredericksburgh, Vicksburgh,
Jackson, the bloody conflicts of the Wilderness, and at Spottsylvania,
Cold Harbor, and afterwards around Petersburgh; at one of these latter
was taken prisoner, and pass'd four or five months in secesh military
prisons, narrowly escaping with life, from a severe fever, from
starvation and half-nakedness in the winter.
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