Dodging Bullets At Petersburg

8th Regt. C.V.

Near Petersburgh, Va.

July 15, l864

Dear Friends At Home;

Am writing today in the trenches. Have been out since night before last we expect to stay until Sunday night... The exact position of the Regiment this time is the rear line; the left resting on the county turnpike, or more definite to you, on the railroad. (The lst Division occupies the space between the river and the railroad.) The rear line furnishes the picket. Suppose some of us will go out tonight.


Externally we are a dirty & brown looking set of fellows, but I guess we are not filthy. We wash daily our faces and hands, bodies every time we go in, and clothes if we can.

As much as I shrink from danger and scenes of battle were I to elect myself to a position of duty it would be someone where the work was being done. It makes cowards of men to stay at the rear (unless they are born without natural caution) and live on the best of the comissary department, the chief share of the sanitary comission, soft beds, and their lives secure from bullets. “Chance is good to get Home”, so they boast. And now I am talking of the “rear guard”. I want to say that as a general thing they are a false class of men. They can tell a good story for themselves. They do not fear or feel ashamed to stop and buy and flatter to get what the world styles a “fat place”. They are real cowards, and because they are, seek the unexposed positions. They are brave as lions in language. They do not fear or feel ‘ ashamed to take the lion’s share of any thing they want—never a thought of merit for those who are the true servants. These men, when they are at Home, cause others to think they have been in service engagements so that they may receive a reward (For the people have a reward to bestow on their patriot servants.) God bestows the true feeling of reward on the true patriot. I wish it need not be so, but it is so.

It is fun to see the citizen or novice soldier, and better one of the “beats” when he is obliged to, come to the front. Where we should stand up straight and walk along paying no attention to the whizzing spent bullets, they half run, dodging this way & that, ducking their head for a bullet that was 6 rods one side or passed 100 feet over them. I suppose it is a fact that a bullet that comes direct and swift towards a men he cannot hear. A bullet that passes is several feet beyond us, ere we hear the whizz, so that in either case, bullet dodging is absurd. Yet instinctive nature will act out the line of preservation. As men sow, so will they reap. Every man lives holy time. Sow he must, and reap he must.

Enough for us to sit here and act & think and let the rest of the world take care of itself. A soldier, in reality, is a machine. A machine cannot think—only obey the bidding of a directing mind. Ergo, thoughts are not part of a soldier. But somehow it is hard to bring an American to that condition. Thoughts will come, and interest ere one is aware, shooting forth as if from a deep strong power, and care and anxiety sit on the brain.

The rebels have some globe sighted rifles with which they make excellent shots. As yet we have nothing in the corps to put against them. Our men I believe are as skillful marksmen as they, perhaps better. The rebels use more powder in their charges so that their bullets go with great force. This accounts for so many bullets flying in our rear.

Love to all the Household.

From your own Jay Nettleton


THE PICKET:

The picket is an outpost or guard positioned further out than the main body of the troops. The picket is the first point of contact for advancing troops from the other side. Sometimes a line of horse is positioned along the picket to give some small shelter to the men. Since Picket duty was the most hazardous task an infantryman could be assigned to, the responsibility was rotated among the men. A soldier on picket duty was the most likely to be picked off by a sniper. In direct combat he was the most likely to be killed wounded, or captured.