a long building, having painted in large letters upon it “The Soldiers’ Rest.” In this we found long wooden tables, and on them the usual fare, boiled corned beef and hard bread, with potatoes boiled in their jackets. The tables were not very clean and flies were much in evidence, but we were too hungry to mind such little things. Along the tables here and there were placed camp kettles filled with coffee.
One of the boys took his plate, knife and fork from his haversack, laid the plate on the table and laid on it an attractive hunk of beef. On cutting it open two or three fat maggots rolled out. He emptied his plate on the dish and reached for a hard tack. This broke easy. The reason was shown, as several lively skippers trickled down on his plate. “I Yum!” said he, “I’ll drink my coffee with my eyes shut,” and he did.28
From the very beginning, one Connecticut regiment—the 14th—showed it had more than enough bravado to go around. Cpl. Albert Crittenden looked back on the green regiment’s spunk as it marched in a formal review of troops just after reaching Washington:
I recall the reviewing stand where President Lincoln, General Scott, Secretary Stanton and other dignitaries stood while we passed in review. Our staff-officers and captains entered the reviewing stand and were in turn introduced to the President and his staff of officials. When the head of B Company, the left of the regiment, reached the stand, President Lincoln was so busy we felt we were not to be noticed, so with one accord, we struck up loudly singing, “We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more.” At once he faced us, straightened up his tall form, doffed his high silk hat and bowed and bowed until we were by.29
IN DIXIE
When the Nutmeg troops arrived in the vicinity of Washington, many found a new general waiting to lead them. George B. McClellan commanded the newly formed Army of the Potomac. “Young Napoleon,” as the papers dubbed him, set about transforming the gawky farmers, bank clerks, and factory workers into a professional fighting force.
That meant more drilling, and here the learning curve rose far more sharply than it had back in training camp in the Land of Steady Habits. The volunteer officers especially struggled with their responsibilities: it wasn’t so easy “to take the Company of one hundred men and so discipline them that each shall observe his position so that the whole body may move as one perfect machine, keeping step in the march—observing a perfect line in company front—march without crowding—break up into platoons and re-form with no confusion—to accomplish all this is no little task.”30
When an officer from the regular army took command of the 4th Connecticut, “He found the regiment … an uneducated and undisciplined body of men. It was his task to make soldiers out of them.” Though the troops lacked uniform coats and shoes, Colonel Tyler required rigid military order. He punished the loafers and praised those who adopted a military bearing; Here, the 4th soldiers marched smartly to the parade ground for drill in Arlington, Virginia, in the fall of 1861.
Charles Coit, the 8th Regiment’s adjutant, wrote to his parents: “am studying harder than I have before for a long time. I am so deficient in the ‘Tactics’ I make a good many blunders at Battalion Drills.”31
Plenty of officers got lost in the tangled wording of the tactics manuals, and no wonder; directions for “By Platoon, right wheel” included:
At the command march, the right front rank man of each platoon will face to the right, the covering sergeant standing fast; the chief of each platoon will move quickly by the shortest line, a little beyond the point at which the marching flank will rest when the wheel shall be completed, face to the late rear, and place himself so that the line which he forms with the man on the right (who had faced), shall be perpendicular to that occupied by the company in line of battle; each platoon will wheel according to the principles prescribed for the wheel on a fixed pivot.32
The army ordered regimental commanders to send their officers to school. “All the non-commissioned officers in our Reg. are obliged hereafter to meet twice a week in the Captains quarters to recite lessons in Military Tactics,” wrote Fred Lucas of the 19th Connecticut. “We met last night for the first time. Not a man knew his lessons in our Co. We had considerable sport during the recitation. All the Field & Staff officers recite to Col. Kellogg twice a week.”33
If their school sessions didn’t teach the officers, their colonel could always resort to swearing, as Michael Kelly described in his diary in 1862: “Col. Kellogg went for Capts. Gold, Peck, Sperry & Williams [during drill]. Gold made a mistake in the movements. Col. shouted, Capt., ask any of your privates &c., and he told Capt. Sperry he would drill his Co. (‘I’) from hell to breakfast, and Peck he called an old woman, & Williams, Turkey Cock. On the whole it was an excitable regimental drill or battallion drill. I tell you the Capts. trembled.”34
Along with continual drilling came the introduction to forced marches. In the months ahead, marching twenty or even thirty miles a day would become commonplace for the Nutmeggers, but right now they were definitely still tenderfeet. The 14th Regiment was scarcely two weeks out of Connecticut when Frederick Burr Hawley noted in his diary, “Tuesday, Sept 9th, 1862. Drilled 2½ hours loading and firing. 12:00 march 5 miles and camp in a lot. One man belonging to Co. K marched to death.”35 The soldier who collapsed and died was James McVay, a Norwich man with two sons in the same company.
Concentrating intently on his tactics reading, William H. Johnson apparently didn’t notice how close his book was to his candle, resulting in charred pages in his Casey’s Infantry Tactics. A second lieutenant in the 8th Connecticut, Johnson died of disease April 6, 1862.
On the flip side of the coin was the early experience of Connecticut’s 4th Regiment (later to become the 1st Heavy Artillery). Chaplain Edward Walker described the regiment’s camp in the Maryland fairgrounds in the summer of 1861:
In this beautiful spot we … made ourselves thoroughly at home. A number of buildings on the premises, which had been erected for the accommodation of the county fair, were refitted by the men for various uses. The largest served as an evening lectureroom, and as a church in rainy weather; in another were held our daily prayer-meetings, glee-clubs, rehearsals, etc.; another was occupied as a guard-house; another was used for forage, while excellent stalls were furnished for our horses.
In addition to these comforts, the men put up swings and bars for gymnastic exercises, so that we were abundantly provided with means of recreation, as well as with all the necessities of life. I think I never saw an equal number of men more happy, contented, and good-natured, than ours were at Camp Abercrombie. Our life there was like that of a summer picnic; and the men, though keen for fighting and prompt to perform all their military duties, had the air of a party of summer excursionists.36
The picnic ended abruptly when the regiment’s lenient colonel resigned, replaced by a colonel from the regular army who “saw at a glance that rigid discipline was needed.”37 Military procedures immediately replaced glee clubs and gymnastics.
John DeForest, an officer in the 12th Regiment, described the daily grind that most volunteer troops followed:
we get up at sunrise. Then the reveille beats; the men turn out under arms; the three commissioned officers look on while the first sergeant calls the roll; the muskets are stacked and the men break ranks. At half past six we breakfast; from seven to eight there is company drill; from half past nine to half past ten, more company drill; at twelve, dinner, which means soup and hardtack; from four to six, battalion drill; at half past
