Sunday

Pressure To Reenlist

Judea is an early name for the town of Washington Connecticut. In 1863 the army suspended furloughs, but offered a leave to all who reenlisted for three more years of service. Those who reenlisted would be shipped home to Connecticut and celebrated as "veterans" upon their arrival. 


Portsmouth
December 2, 1863

Dear Henry and all others at Home;

Dwight arrived safely this afternoon, well as a fish. I conclude he thinks the trip paid well...

It is doubtful that you see more of Judea boys until after the 5th of January, unless they come as Veteran Volunteers on a Furlough. Furloughs have stopped in our regiment, and we can’t account for the fact only that they want as many as possible to reenlist and think some will do it for the sake of going home. 

I have only to say that when I have served three years then will be the time to talk with them. Money did not cause me to go; it will never cause me to reenlist. Other causes may.

What a fine chance to put $700.00 into one’s purse or add so much to the private Bank! I have such a high estimation of men as to believe that more men will enlist for the mere dollars than any other cause...

I must close. with Brotherly affection 
Jay Nettleton


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Choosing Not To Reenlist

After services one August morning in 1861, Jay Nettleton and six others from Washington decided to volunteer. According to his account of that Sabbath morning each of the seven said "If you will go, I will..." In addition to Nettleton, the seven included Dwight and Fitz Hollister, Simeon Calhoun, Lucius Fox, William Black, and Harvey Perkins. Dwight and Fitz Hollister were cousins. Dwight and Jay Nettleton, according to their letters, were very close. Now, after three years of faithful service, three of the original seven decide not to reenlist. This was no small decision, given that virtually everyone else in their regiment of over 300 men has signed on for three more years.


January 3, 1864


The chief thought of the reenlisted men is of going home. Who wonders? Not a twentieth of them have seen home since they first left the State.

Fitz asked his parents if they wanted to see him home as a “Veteran”, and Preston roused himself to write the first words he ever wrote to him “No, Fitz we don’t want to see you home as a Veteran.” But while the question and its reply were transmitted, the question was solved practically, and sooner or later Fitz and William Black will appear among you as “Veterans”. I suppose you think I have not reenlisted. I have not. Neither has Dwight or Lucius Fox.

I have now received letters from Martha, Charles and you. Martha gave a willing consent that I should reenlist if I thought best, and conditions (were met) that involved my ability to allow her to share the inconvenience of camp life with me. Charles said “do not reenlist, by all means do not reenlist.” 
I made up my mind what course to pursue and that I would not break it - that I would not sell myself for the bounties, nor the pride, nor position.
I felt independent as a man. I talked independent, as I have not for two long years. I for once stood up and dictated terms that belonged to me. It did me good. I feel more of a man and should be more myself for the next nine months. 

My obligations to government do not become void until next October, in which time we have reason to hope something telling will be done to the rebellion.

If I allowed myself to be lead on to bind myself for three years more I might have occasion to think I had sold myself at the expense of friends—to say nothing of the paltry barter I received in lieu thereof. People may think that I am anxious to be free the service because I don’t renlist..

It is not at all certain but that I may reenter the service if I am needed, though I acknowledged in my own mind that the chances are against it . I believe it to be a higher ground to take ~ that is, to say that government can have my services if she needs them nine months hence without money or price, than it is to reenlist now.

I think Fitz yielded in an impulsive moment and now wishes it might have been otherwise. He won’t acknowledge any such thing. The money had no influence on him, neither any paltry motives but those of interest to the country. He fell or stood on himself. His parents ought not to count on him as specially theirs. He is his own man before God and must act as an independent individual. Parents think they need children when they can do without them.

It is generally understood that the llth and 8th are going to Hartford together on the same boat to New Haven. It is possible I may know exactly when they are to leave here before I send this. 

We have church services out in the open air - God’s free temple. The Chaplain preached a good sermon exhibiting the style of manhood he is possessed of.. He reminds me of Buck that once belonged to our Company. The virtue of a man seems to be in the encasement of flesh. I will send you his last sermon to his parish - in justification of his course. You will see in it an unvarnished man, one of action rather than of words. His wife is here also. She believes in drafting so that the Copperheads will have to bear some of the burden someway—money or person.


COPPERHEADS:
A pejorative name for Northerners who opposed the war and sometimes worked actively to undermine the war effort.


Copyright © 2011 Gunn Memorial Museum. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. 

Fitz Hollister: Reenlistment and Furlough



I respect Fitz in his judgement, though think he misconceived things. He very likely will make out what will be to you some very biting remarks about Dwight and I because we have been so cool. 

When my course was decided, I was as quiet as if nothing was going on. Outside men were walking about; they couldn’t keep still. Men who hated the service terribly—some who had mothers depending wholly on them, some wives or what will be some time. And they could not rest until the fated name had been written. One fellow got up at ll o’clock, with the intention of doing as others had done, walked the length of the street and went back to bed. The fourth night he said he believed he should have to enlist to save his life. He hadn’t slept any in four nights and he’d begun to want some rest—and that decided him. When he came back he said he guessed he could sleep now.

A few of the men reenlisted for the money. A very few because they wanted to see the war through. (good fellows.) The tide began to set towards reenlistment and the men were swept along in the current and reenlisted. They and their friends will never know the wherefore. We had about 300 able-bodied men and about 50 disabled. 280 men have reenlisted and been accepted, leaving 35 or 40 able-bodied members who have not reenlisted.  

In Company I, 27 men have reenlisted and been accepted. (Of the 7 men remaining) four are either wholly disabled or are broken down by the service, so much they think they couldn’t stand three years more. Lucius is among that number. The other three are Bocrun, Dwight & myself. 

The men are talking and thinking how they can get new coats & pants so they will look well when they appear in Hartford. As if the service worn clothes are not ornamental. It seems to me as if it would pay some of you to go to Hartford to meet Fitz and William. These Veterans are nothing more than men such as you have seen. Still I think almost any man with patriotic sentiments in his bosom would swell with pride to look on a band of men (and the old flag) who have endured, faced danger, been patient and struggled with life’s enemies for the cause they have.

It is generally understood that the llth and 8th are going to Hartford togegther on the same boat to New Haven. It is possible I may know exactly when they are to leave here before I send this. I wonder if I have written enough about this matter!


Copyright © 2011 Gunn Memorial Museum. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. 

Clothing

May 24th, 1864 
Camp 8th Regt. Conn Vols 
near Bermuda Hundred, Va 

Dear Celia, 

I am having quite a leisure day. Yesterday was a quiet day also, but my time was taken up by washing and putting my clothes in order.

Dwight and I dipped into the wash tub (an ammunition box) bright and early.

A clear day and sultry sun took the damp out of the articles double quick, and ere the middle of the afternoon. I had my stockings mended, shirt and drawers neatly folded and stowed in knapsack (the soldier’s wardrobe, chest, and general depository of everything).

Dwight lost one of his Homemade shirts and seems to begrude the rebels the article...




I must close. 
With Brotherly affection 
I am as ever
Jay Nettleton


Copyright © 2011 Gunn Memorial Museum. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. 

Saturday

Shooting Practice

Camp Burnside
Annapolis
December 18, 1861

Friends at Home;

This afternoon, we went out targetshooting. None of us did anything worthy of mention. My 2nd shot was next best made in the company today—and it was 4 or 5 inches from the bulls eye. Shot three times, hit the target twice. 

Our guns shoot straight enough to shoot at men. If we don’t hit one, it may another. The balls go strongly. Often when they strike the ground and glance like a flat stone on water and go whistling over the rise of ground that we shoot against. Occassionally one turns down soon after it leaves the ground much to the displeasure of the shooter.

Near Bermuda Hundred, Va.
May 28th l863

Dear Brother and Friends at Home

Of course bullets are governed by natural laws in every respect. I think I may state as true that nearly all lives lost, and wounds received, are from shots aimed at some other person, or at no one in particular. I don’t think that more than 1 ball out of 100 touches the life it is aimed at. It is a source of wonder to all, when in battle, when bullets are flying thick all around, that only a few get hit. After we had been made to give way the other morning near Fort Darling, some of us formed behind some logs on the flank of another Regiment. One man, from another Regiment was out in front of us, very bold, hollering at the rebels and firing as he saw fit. We asked him to get back on a line with us. A short time afterwards I noticed him on my right exposing himself in the same way. He was just ready to fire and was looking defiantly at the rebels when a shot struck him in the breast. He cried out “I am hit” and with death struggles turned and stepped 5 or 6 paces to the rear falling on his face dead. That was the first bullet I ever witnessed as touching its intended life. Was conscious of a bullet coming very near my head once as I raised up over the breastwork to fire at a man behind a tree not far from me. I did my best at all the rebellion embodied in him. I see no difference between men being hit whether they are Christians of not....(page missing from letter)

It is a natural consequence of our influences that men should talk of shooting another as if it were a small affair. When the war ends there will be an element abroad that we once should (have) considered an evil omen for moral civilization. But this is part of the cost of the war as Greeley summed it up two years ago. I think he said that six months of civil war would put back our moral civilization 50 years.

The Battlefield


Near Bermuda Hundred, Va.
May 28th l863


As we went on to the battlefield I didn’t see dead, or much else but what was before us, or the foe on the right, & when on the ridge my mind was so intent on what was before me. I involuntarily noticed now and then a man wounded and heard him cry out, and drop or pass back of the lines, but scarce felt a thought or an emotion towards assisting—so fixed has the fact become in our minds that we must not leave the ranks to assist the wounded and thus doubly decimate our strength.

When ordered to retreat the eyes were not on the ground to notice what was there, but care for order in our movement and the foe on either side. As we retired the other day, it was with feelings of sadness. We knew by our small number and an instinctive feeling that a good many had been made to suffer by loss of limbs and wounds in all parts of the body and that many were dead. 

We expect to die. It may not start the floods to see a lifeless body—but when the thoughts recur to friends at home, then come the tears. The soldier does not cry for himself—but for his friends, the husband for his family, others for those just as dear.

To go over the field and see the dead that had lain 36 hours or more, exposed to the weather, and see the bloated bodies—some that are putrid, others that are shockingly mangled, is revolting rather than touching to the sympathies. We feel that the man is not there and that what remains is unfeeling clay. The necessary duties of gathering the dead, although unpleasant and laborious, is set about with energy—yet carefully as if we thought they had been men and not animals. It is not pleasant to go over such a field. It might be once perhaps to gratify the curiosity.

I see men that others say are reporters passing us now and then. But to know any of them or for what paper they write I am wholly ignorant. Just where they are at the time of battles I shouldn’t like to say. I judge they tell more what they hear than what they see...

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. 

Dwight Hollister

Near Portsmouth, Va.
Feb. 17, 1864


Dear Brother Henry and All at Home;

Our beautiful weather came to a close night before last. Clouds came and rain followed in torrents. The morning came out clear but it grew cold all day and last night everything froze stiff. Today it thaws a little on the sunny side of buildings but otherwise the cold wind sustains the last nights work. I have moved within as reasonable distance of the fire so that my fingers and feet may work according to order. 

We have a woodpile this morning the efforts of Dwight’s providence. I think 195 pounds of muscle ought to be equal to the task. Dwight makes a good bedfellow to snug up to cold nights. And he has enough of Aunt Patty about him so that he doesn’t want a load of clothes on in warm weather. The opposite natures of Uncle Sherman and Aunt Patty seem to be well and harmoniously united in Dwight.

We have letters from our western cousing quite often. Dwight is probably their best correspondent— the most punctual. I have received letters from Charlie, Lucius’ oldest boy, Rosa Phelps, Addie & Julia, Noble’s two oldest girls, and Clark’s family. Which fact testifies how they are growing to be men and women. They were children l2 years old when I wast here. Now they are starting out into the world...

Another mouse has just died. Little innocent fellows, but they will get into Dwight’s “box trap”.

Black Soldiers

February 17, 1864
Near Portsmouth Virginia

Dear Brother and Friends at Home; 

The only curiosity I have seen lately is a “colored train” coming in from North Carolina. About sixty teams, four of them ox teams and one double team of horses—the rest mules & Virginia Carts. It is said that when a company of colored troops scout into the country they give all slaves a chance to enlist—to come or stay as they choose whether they enlist of not. But when a man does enlist, they make a draft of a team on the farmer giving a receipt for it, load up the darkie household and leave. Most of the women ride and usually one or two “curly heads” are sticking out somewhere. The man and half~grown “chillen” foot it. I presume I could carry the weight of baggage of one family on my back. A few of them have a small show of old furniture. It is necessary to come in contact with them and witness the longings of the real man in them to have the fullest sympathy. It is the simple desire of manhood, implanted by God, speaking out....
It is time for “tattoo” so good night from your affectionate brother

Jay Nettleton

Letters Written By Candlelight

December 9, 1861
Camp Burnside Annapolis

Dear Brother and Friends at Home;

Our letters will have to be written in the night. We have one candle furnished daily—it is a little more than half as long as one of yours, but it is hardly called “adamantine”, will burn three good hours & gives a pleasant light.

There are six of us writing tonight. Five are sitting at a table made of the first box that was sent to us. Two of the boards were used for the platform and the others for legs and braces. The candle is set in our 25 cent candleholder that we carry with us. The guns are standing on one side and the boys are sitting two on 2 benches and one on 1.... 

These benches are split and hewed out of our firewood—with legs put in with an auger.... it recalls to mind the description Millburn gives of the wedding in the backwoods—about their erecting the house for the bridegroom and making the furniture....

Our stove is a Patent one that we bought last week. Cost $4. It’s made of sheet iron and takes down to 7 pieces so we can carry it. It’s a cute little thing. Our major says there will be a way provided to carry them....

Feeling the necessity of writing (but with no chance for) a seat at the table I stirred about and got another candle and made a candlestick out of a hard cracker & set it on the stove and myself beside it with with a knapsack & part of a bed for a seat.


February 17, 1864
Near Portsmouth Virginia

It is night—the twilight is almost gone. The cold does not abate. Perhaps it is not so very cold. It seems worse because we have had almost summer weather for a long time. Yet is is cold enough to keep ink and water frozen in the opposite part of the tent from the fire. 




ADAMANTINE: 
A lustrous mineral. The word is also used as an adjective to refer to non-metallic, brilliant light reflecting properties, known as adamantine luster. Diamonds are described as having adamantine luster.


Departure

Jamaica & L.I.
Oct. 22 1861

Dear Family and Friends at Home;

I dare say you are looking for a letter from me. If you could know the medley and confusion and bustle of removing 1,000 men from one place to another—the breaking up, the excitement and trouble of transporting the troops, and the unsettled state of camp for two or three days, you wouldn’t wonder if I didn’t write.

Last week we were ordered to pack our knapsacks and be in readiness to form into line at two o’clock.  At the beat of the drum the tents all dropped with but a few exceptions through the Regiment. One minute all that could be seen was the tents, the next the field was a living mass of blue. The way that is done is by the pulling all but four pins beforehand. Then four men are stationed by these pins so that when the drum taps, down come the tents.

We marched directly to the boat, but our knapsacks felt like lead a long time before we got there. We stood it well enough, but felt a little sore afterwards. They won’t ever feel so heavy again. We started from Hartford at 4 o’clock. 7 Regiments went on the boat we were on. I found a chair soon and stuck to it until after dark so that I didn’t see anything down the river.

Our “old hoss” had 12 cars full to draw (700 men) (a little too much). When out 10 or 11 miles we were stopped and ordered off. We went a few rods from the tracks and stacked our Arms, then lazed the remaining part of the day and slept by ones arms through the night, I spread my Rubber coat down and lay down in my clothes and overcoat, pulling my cap over my head and spread my blanket over me. The night was warm but foggy. We all were warm enough. I can’t say that I slept first rate....

I like our Colonel better & better. He is very rigid—suits me, but some think it’s hard treatment. The major is a jolly fellow—jokes & likes to receive the same coin in return. 

When I hear any one talk as Jane did when she said she should rather bury a friend rather than that they should go into the Army, I am glad I have enlisted, that I have given up myself for my country and right....

Pray for us wherever we are

From your

Jay Nettleton