A PRIVATE GETS SCHOOLED FROM A VETERAN
Private Frank Wilkeson, the son of war correspondent Samuel Wilkeson Jr., was just sixteen years old when he enlisted in a New York artillery battery. At the start of the 1864 campaign season, a veteran gunner offered the young soldier some valuable advice from his years of experience.
“DO NOT PICK UP ANYTHING...CUT HAVERSACKS FROM DEAD MEN...KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN FOR TOBACCO...FILL YOUR CANTEEN AT EVERY STREAM... NEVER WASH YOUR FEET UNTIL THE DAY’S MARCH IS OVER... “”
Frank Wilkeson, 4th U.S. Artillery (Library of Congress)
The following excerpt is from "RECOLLECTIONS OF A PRIVATE SOLDIER IN THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC," published in 1887.
On the evening of May 3rd we fell in for dress parade. Up and down the immense camp we could see regiment after regiment, battery after battery, fall into line. The bugles rang out clearly in the soft spring air, distant drums beat, and trumpets blared. Then there was silence most profound. We listened attentively to the orders to march. To the right, to the left, in the distance before us, and far behind us, cheers arose. Battery after battery, regiment after regiment, cheered until the men were hoarse. My comrades did not cheer. They seemed to be profoundly impressed, but not in the least elated. The wonted silence of the evening was repeatedly broken by the resounding shouts of distant troops, who could not contain their joy that the season of inactivity was over, and the campaign, which we all hoped would be short and decisive, was opened. That night many unwonted fires burned, and we knew that the veteran troops were destroying the camp equipage which they did not intend to carry. Jellet, the gunner of the piece I served on, came to me that evening, and kindly looked into my knapsack, and advised me as to what to keep and what to throw away. He cut my kit down to a change of underclothing, three pairs of socks, a pair of spare shoes, three plugs of navy tobacco, a rubber blanket, and a pair of woollen blankets.
"Now, my lad," Jellet said, "do not pick up any thing, excepting food and tobacco, while you are on the march. Get hold of all the food you can. Cut haversacks from dead men. Steal them from infantrymen if you can. Let your aim be to secure food and food and still more food, and keep your eyes open for tobacco. Do not look at clothing or shoes or blankets. You can always draw those articles from the quartermaster. Stick to your gun through thick and thin. Do not straggle. Fill your canteen at every stream we cross and wherever you get a chance elsewhere. Never wash your feet until the day's march is over. If you do, they will surely blister." And here Jellet became highly impressive and shook his index finger at me warningly and solemnly, "and," he said, "get hold of food, and hang on to it; you will need it."
The next morning we had our things packed and our breakfast eaten by sunrise. Our useless plunder was piled up; to each bundle was fastened a tag, on which was the name of its owner. The pile was turned over to the battery quartermaster, who said he would take good care of the property. He did, too — such good care that we never again saw a particle of it. I wanted to burn the camp, but the old soldiers who had fought under McClellan, and Burnside, and Hooker, and Meade, and Pope, scornfully snubbed me. They said: "Leave things as they are," and they added, significantly: "We may want them before snow flies."