150 YEARS AGO, October 26th fell on a Sunday. Lt. Samuel Fiske reported that the regiment was in camp, that their midday meal had just been finished, and that he and some of his friends were about engage in a Sabbath afternoon Bible study, when orders were received for Company I to pack up and be ready to march within fifteen minutes for special duty across the Potomac on Maryland Heights.

As we have seen in previous posts, there was not much to pack. There may have been a Sibley tent or two and a few of the men had half shelter tents, and some of the more fortunate ones had a blanket or an overcoat, but most struggled to survive without the basic necessities the army had taken from the men of the Fourteenth when they first set foot on enemy soil.

Every avenue was tried to get these vital possessions back. Letters were sent. Private citizens with influence in Washington were appealed to. Repeated requests were sent to the high command of the army, asking that one of the officers of the Fourteenth be allowed to travel the sixty miles to Washington, recover their things, and return them to the regiment. Every request was denied and the men continued to suffer and die, “a brief funeral service, a rough coffin, a shallow grave, and a wooden headboard,” their only reward for duty done. (Fiske) And during these last few days of October, Sgt. Hirst wrote to his wife of the death of two more friends from Rockville.

As you might imagine the men were eager to leave Bolivar Heights and get on with the war. Cold rain drenched the sixty men of Company I as they marched down the steep road into Harper”s Ferry that Sunday afternoon. They stood wet and shivering awaiting orders and were finally told to take shelter in the town’s most famous building—the red brick engine house that three years earlier had been occupied by John Brown and his band of abolitionists.

          The engine house at Harper’s Ferry

Soon a fire was blazing inside and the men of Company I, at least, were warm and dry that night. For the other nine companies, their wasting time at Bolivar would continue for a few more days, and then they too would be on the march.

The six weeks at Bolivar Heights was hard and sometimes deadly for the men of the Fourteenth Connecticut. Fresh water could be found at a spring about three-quarters of a mile away, but only after climbing down a steep, rocky, and wooded trail. Rations were issued regularly, but the quality was poor. Railroad cars filled with barrels of salt pork, crates of hardtack, and sacks of oats and corn, were sent to the army in the vicinity of Harper’s Ferry, but the food was often left by the side of the tracks. It turned rancid in the heat of day. It was soaked by cold rain, ruined by mold and mildew, and infested with insects. Disease swept through the camp, confining hundreds to sickbeds, and sending many to their graves.

But the men adapted to survive. They learned to soak their hardtack in their coffee. The coffee not only softened the hardtack, but also killed any bugs hiding within it. The dead bugs floated to the top and were easily skimmed off.

Sgt. Ben Hirst’s good fortune in having a Sibley tent for himself and some of his friends seems not to have been long-lived (see post of 09/28/12), because near the end of the stay at Bolivar, he mentions only a half shelter tent among his inventory of meager possessions. “My whole kit was the shoes, pants, vest blouse, and cap I had in Hartford. I had 2 shirts on my back, a stolen overcoat, and was a shareholder in a Rebel blanket, a fine assortment for a winter campaign, but there were other ones worse off than me, as they were without overcoats and blankets both, all we had at night was a flimsy shelter tent.”

On October 27, Hirst wrote to his wife Sarah, “I am in good health at present and have arrived at the stage that old soldiers consider veteran, namely regular in my bowels and lousy.” Old soldiers were old in terms of experience, not of years. His stomach now seems to tolerate the poor diet, and when Ben Hirst describes himself as lousy, he is not referring to how he’s feeling, but that he is now infested with body lice. He and every Civil War soldier would do battle with these vermin more often than they would fight the enemy on the battlefield. Cute little guy, isn’t he? 

You may recall how the men of the Fourteenth Connecticut were ordered to drop all their gear—knapsacks, woolen blankets, rubber blankets, shelter tents, overcoats—so they wouldn”t be hindered by those things during the rigors of marching and fighting. They would be at Bolivar for six weeks and they needed that missing gear to protect them from the elements.

A Sibley tent could sleep up to a dozen men.

The men began to strengthen the Bolivar fortifications against possible Rebel attack. In their digging they discovered some Sibley tents that had been buried by the defenders of Harper’s Ferry to keep them from falling into the hands of the Rebels. Each Sibley tent could hold about a dozen men, and with a fire burning brightly in the center of the tent, it could be quite cozy. The tents were a great find to be sure, but there were not enough of them to go around. Sgt. Ben Hirst and some of his friends in Company D were among the fortunate ones and enjoyed the benefits of being warm and dry at night, while many others were forced to live entirely exposed to the elements.

Food was lousy, and their water was often unclean. Hirst wrote to his wife, Sarah, on October 1, that “all the rations that we have received since we occupied this place has been our rations of hard bread (hardtack) and coffee, sugar, and pork (salt pork). We have had fresh meat once, rice once, and beans once.”

Under the pen-name Dunn Browne, Captain Samuel Fiske wrote to the Springfield Republican on September 24, “Did you ever see a brigadier general riding along on his splendid charger, with a string of sweet corn ears hanging on his left arm, and onion tops peeping out of his saddle bags? I did, yesterday, and observed his look of triumph in the possession of the aforesaid articles, greater than if he had gained a battle.” Of course, the good and healthy food would be reserved for the officer’s own table.

The residents of Bolivar and Harper’s Ferry knew a good business opportunity when they saw it. Many sold loaves of bread and cakes to the soldiers. The men also wrote home for food to supplement their meager diets, and when such a parcel did arrive, they could all gladly echo Hirst’s words of thanks to Sarah, “I have just received the good things you sent me and it has put new life in me.”