As Seen from the Ranks; A Boy in the Civil War (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II FROM CAMP TO FIELD A Winter in Baltimore?City Camp and Field Camp? Short Rations?Fun and Hardship?A Forced March?Echoes of Battle. IN the southern part of the city of Baltimore was an old estate which had formerly belonged to the Stuart family. On this property was located an army hospital known as Stuart Hospital. But my principal interest in the locality was in an adjoining camp known as Camp Millington, for this was our first halt after leaving Camp Dutchess. Just at the time of our arrival one of tKe family, Gen. J. E. B. Stuart of the Confederate cavalry, commonly mentioned by his nickname, Jeb Stuart, was engaged in a raid across Maryland into Pennsylvania, and the camp was tenanted only by empty tents and the guards walking theirbeats, for the regiments which had been there had gone to assist in repelling the invasion. They soon returned, however, hungry and tired, and resumed camp routine. Before long these first tenants of Camp Millington were placed on board transports and taken to New Orleans. In time we also were moved to another camp, Camp Belger, and as cold weather came on we were furnished lumber and the regiment built barracks for winter quarters. These were built in a grove of beautiful oaks near Druid Hill Park, and were in the form of one long two-story building which occupied three sides of a hollow square. This square thus enclosed had the trees suitably thinned out and the stumps cleared away, and then became our parade ground. The central part of the barracks formed the officers' quarters, and several of them sent for their families and instituted housekeeping with a degree of comfort. The wings were fitted into quarters for the enlisted men, each company having a section to itself, the upper story having three tiers of bunks, ...