Читать книгу A Minor War History Compiled from a Soldier Boy's Letters to "the Girl I Left Behind Me": 1861-1864 онлайн

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Headquarters Second Regt. N. H. V.,

Portsmouth, June 16, 1861.

WE know, at last, just when we are going away—“sure.” Next Thursday, at 7 o’clock in the morning, we are off. As we go direct to Boston, and not through Manchester, it is good bye until I come home from the war.

Si. Swain is under guard today. He refused to do duty and invited Rod. Manning, one of the sergeants, to go to H——ot place.

My ribs are sore from laughing over the regatta we had today out on the mill pond. Some of the boys gathered together from somewhere a number of hogsheads, halved by being sawed in two, and went voyaging in them. They were not a very manageable craft. They rolled around every-which-way, capsized, collided, and went through all sorts of ridiculous stunts.

We have had issued to us blue flannel blouses, thin, loose, and far more comfortable than our uniform dress coats.

Some of the boys have been fishing down at the fort today. They brought home a lobster they caught, and while a kettle of water is heating to boil him in, are teasing the poor fellow with sticks. “Heenan” is taking an active part in the persecution. He holds up long enough to say to me, “Tell her I want to keep the first two months’ pay to buy my liquor with; but after that I will remit enough so that, with her own efforts, the family will be insured from want.”