Page:Historical and biographical sketches.djvu/395

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SIX WEEKS IN UNIFORM.
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cocheague creek, and following along the bank to a good place for bathing, out of sight of the town, we stripped off our clothes and took a swim. The water was very cold from coming directly from springs. In a short walk, we counted I think a dozen. We hurried out on account of an approaching thunder shower, and reached camp shortly after it commenced raining. About this time we heard of the riots in New York, and it was rumored that Governor Curtin had offered our services to assist in quelling them. Some of the fellows were uneasy about it, especially one poor man by the name of Lockhardt, whom all delighted to tantalize with these floating reports, because of his aversion to the service, and his anxiety to get home. He was terribly afraid of being drafted and since then, actually had the misfortune to draw a prize in Uncle Sam's lottery. Another was Van. Missimer, a big, fat, lazy fellow, who was assistant cook, and who could generally be seen sitting upon his beam end on a log, watching dirty Mike blow his nose with his fingers over the camp kettle in which the meal was being prepared.

Saturday, July 25th. In the morning we had no drill, but were all at work policing the ground, cleaning things up and burning the trash about the place. We considered this a certain indication of a movement as we had previously policed at the fort, Greencastle, and every camp at which we stopped, before leaving it. After the work was accomplished, Nyce and I went to a farm house and got our dinners. The lady said she had fed a large number of the rebel officers, who were generally very polite, and paid in their scrip, but they had taken from the farm six horses without any compensation. I bought from her a five dollar blue-back confederate note, for which I gave her fifty cents. In the afternoon we had a tremendously heavy storm, which completely flooded the camp, beat