Chapter 8 - Harrisburg Life Continued

CHAPTER VIII

HARRISBURG LIFE CONTINUED

We do not pretend to give the entire history of each individual member of the company, since that would be a much more difficult task than we would be willing or able to perform, but we hall endeavor to give all the main facts, as well as many of the minor events as they occurred under our immediate observation, or were related to us at the time of their occurrence.

To show how soon a soldier becomes inured to the hardships and privations of a soldier’s life, as well as becomes hardened to scenes and acts which before his entry into service would have appeared to be almost impossible, and in support of this proposition, we need but narrate an event which took place one evening at the River Hospital, about six weeks after we had been mustered into service.  We generally slept in some of the tents connected with the hospitals, but it frequently happened that the tents were used as dead houses, that is, used as a place to keep those in who died in the hospital during the day, and owing to the number of severely wounded men at the time, there were often as many as three or four dear persons in the outside tent, awaiting the arrival of friends or relatives to take them to their homes for interment.  At first when the tent had any dead in, the boys would sleep on the outside.  This soon however played out, and one night when there were four dead soldiers placed in the tent on stretchers, we prepared to retire for the night, and as the greater part of the tent was filled with the dead, we were compelled to run our feet and legs under the aforesaid stretchers.  We had just settled down for a good snooze, when one of the boys placed his knees on the bottom of the first stretcher and with a steady pressure raised the center of the stretcher up, and as a natural consequence the dead man, without a warning, fell with a heavy “thud” upon us.  He was lifted back upon the stretcher and we prepared anew for sleep, about the time we were nearly ready to drop off to the land of Nod, when one of the boy’s said: “Gol­ly boys wouldn’t we jump up if one of these dead fellows were to commence to scratch around above us.”  No sooner said than up went the knees and down came the dead man. We lifted the corpse up and placed it on its rest, and after passing a number of jokes went to sleep, and were awakened in the morning by Will Seesholtz, who let himself drop upon us, thinking of course that it was the dead man, and raising up we attempted to place him upon the stretcher.  Seesholtz began to struggle, and only being partly awake, we for the time thought the dead had come to life again.  We however soon discovered our mistake, and Billy was pitched out of the tent a flying.

It was certainly an amusing episode in ‘our soldier lives when we caught the first “gray-backs.”  A number of the hospital guards slept in the boxes which contained the clothing of the wounded inmates of the hospital, and the result was that we became kinder over run with the vermin before we knew it.  Not knowing what was the matter, as an eruption was breaking out on various parts of our bodies and thinking that it, might be itch, we called on one of the Hospital Surgeons, informing him that we were troubled with a kind of a rash, which we wished he wo’d give us something for.  He asked us to show him the rash(?) which we did.  He only laughed and stated that the rash was caused by “gray-backs” on our persons, and that just as soon as we would rid ourselves of the “gray-backs,” the “rash” would go away. A statement which we found to be correct.

Time passed pleasantly in the main, the company had its hands full, guard duty during the day and sight seeing at night, and many were the humorous adventures that our boys got into, and here we will mention that one of the boys, D. W. Gross got lost near a red coal pile, for says Dan although a little befuddled his logic was correct, “red looks black at night, and it was the blackest pile that ever I saw.”

The first Rebels that we had the privilege of seeing were encamped for a short time in Camp Simmons, having been captured at Antietam.  They numbered over 200, and from what we afterwards learn­ed were a pretty fair specimen of the Confederate Soldiery.  It was amusing to us to hear them talk in their drawling Southern vernacular, whilst at the same time we were impressed with their martial  appearance.

It was here that a number of our boys found fault with the manner in which the authorities treated these prisoners as several of the Rebel officers were escorted through the city, and even taken to min­strel performance, in which that great negro delineator of the day, Sam Sharpley, gave the Johnnies several home thrusts.  The prisoners in camp as far as drawing rations were concerned lived better than we did, as they drew a superior article of ham, whilst we were compelled to subsist on “sow-belly” and “salt-horse.”  We had every reason to believe that these prisoners rather enjoyed their captivity.