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A Raw Recruit's War Experiences By: Ansel D. Nickerson |
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A RAW RECRUIT'S
WAR EXPERIENCES.
BY
ANSEL D. NICKERSON,
Late Private Co. B, Eleventh Rhode Island Volunteers.
PROVIDENCE:
PRINTED BY THE PRESS COMPANY.
1888. FOR PRIVATE DISTRIBUTION ONLY. AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED
To My Wife,
WHOSE PATRIOTIC SPIRIT PROMPTED
ME TO OFFER MY SERVICES
TO MY COUNTRY. "The neighing troop, the flashing blade,
The bugle's stirring blast,
The charge, the dreadful cannonade,
The din and shout are past."
APOLOGY.
This "war paper" was first read before the Rhode Island Soldiers and
Sailors Society, in Providence, October 19, 1886. Subsequently it was read
at the annual winter reunion of the Eleventh Rhode Island Regiment
(January 27, 1887), two companies of which regiment (B and F) were
recruited in Pawtucket, the former commanded by Captain Charles W.
Thrasher and Lieutenant Thomas Moies, and the latter by Captain Edward
Taft. It has since been read several times before other associations and
societies. The paper was not intended for publication, nor was it
originally broken into chapters, and in allowing it to be published, the
author permits the urgent requests of numerous friends to outweigh his own
judgment. It does not assume to be a connected or detailed history of the
regiment; nor is it the history of any one company of the regiment; nor is
it the diary of an officer of the regiment, but simply what its title
indicates, "A RAW RECRUIT'S WAR EXPERIENCES." More is said about Company B
than of any other company in the Eleventh Regiment for the reason that the
aforesaid "raw recruit's war experiences" were especially identified with
that company. Being personal recollections, and to a large extent the
recital of personal incidents connected with the nine months' campaign of
the regiment in Virginia, must be my apology for the frequent use of the
personal pronoun I. As the events of which I speak occurred at a period in our country's
history when a spade was called a spade, and among a class of men who
could not be justly accused of ambiguity of expression, my paper will be
found to contain more than one "strong, old fashioned English word,
familiar to all who read their Bibles." To those comrades whose war experiences were of a very different character
from my own, and into whose hands this unpretentious little volume may
fall, I trust that the recital of some of the ludicrous scenes in camp and
on the march, rather than the harrowing descriptions of sanguinary
battles, may not prove wholly unwelcome. A. D. N. PAWTUCKET, R. I., April, 1888.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. THE "RAW RECRUIT" ENLISTS AND GOES INTO CAMP 1
CHAPTER II. OFF FOR THE SEAT OF WAR THE KNAPSACKS 11
CHAPTER III. AT MINER'S HILL FIRST DEATH THE "LONG ROLL" 18
CHAPTER IV. THE CONVALESCENT CAMP SCENES GRAVE AND GAY 27
CHAPTER V. AT "THE FRONT" NORFOLK AND SUFFOLK 34
CHAPTER VI. PASTIMES IN CAMP RELIGIOUS SERVICES 40
CHAPTER VII. BAKED BEANS THE DEACON'S ADVICE STEAMED OYSTERS 46
CHAPTER VIII. THE ELEVENTH LOSES TWO COLONELS 51
CHAPTER IX. YORKTOWN HOME AGAIN MUSTERED OUT 57
CHAPTER X. "HONOR TO WHOM HONOR IS DUE" 61
A Raw Recruit's War Experiences.
CHAPTER I.
During the winter preceding the firing upon Sumter, I was one of a group
of young fellows of about my own age who regularly assembled evenings at
the corner grocery of the village where we lived, to listen to older
persons discuss the affairs of the nation and all other matters, moral,
intellectual and social, as is the nightly custom in country groceries,
and particularly the probabilities of war between the North and the South,
which, I will say in passing, every day grew more probable. Each several
barrel head in that grocery seemed to know its own occupant, and for any
one else to have appropriated it to his own use, especially had he been a
young man, would, I am sure, have been deemed an unpardonable breach of
courtesy... Continue reading book >>
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