Just below me is a collection
of hospital tents, with a yellow flag elevated on a stick, and moving
languidly in the breeze. Two discharged men (I know them both)
are just leaving. One is so weak he can hardly walk; the other is
stronger, and carries his comrade's musket. They move slowly along
the muddy road toward the depot. The scenery is full of breadth, and
spread on the most generous scale (everywhere in Virginia this thought
fill'd me.) The sights, the scenes, the groups, have been varied and
picturesque here beyond description, and remain so.
I heard the men return in force the other night--heard the shouting,
and got up and went out to hear what was the matter. That night scene
of so many hundred tramping steadily by, through the mud (some big
flaring torches of pine knots,) I shall never forget. I like to go to
the paymaster's tent, and watch the men getting paid off. Some have
furloughs, and start at once for home, sometimes amid great chaffing
and blarneying. There is every day the sound of the wood-chopping
axe, and the plentiful sight of negroes, crows, and mud. I note large
droves and pens of cattle. The teamsters have camps of their own, and
I go often among them. The officers occasionally invite me to dinner
or supper at headquarters. The fare is plain, but you get something
good to drink, and plenty of it. Gen. Meade is absent; Sedgwick is in
command.
PAYING THE 1ST U. S. C. T.
One of my war time reminiscences comprises the quiet side scene of
a visit I made to the First Regiment U.
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