Stilwell enlisted in an Illinois regiment in 1862. He wrote his account in 1916, and his memory was refreshed by all the letters he had written home and an extensive daily diary he faithfully kept until he was mustered out in 1865. He provides a fascinating account of the "grunts" who bore the brunt of the boredom, . fighting and dying. Their conditions were strikingly different from those of the officers. He describes lying in the rain, covered with cinders from the smokestack, on the open deck of a riverboat, having dined on mealy "hardtack and raw sow-belly with river water for a beverage of the vintage, say, 1541" while looking down through the window into the warm well-lit cabin where the officers, seated around a linen-bedecked table, . were being served by waiters in white uniforms. Their diet consisted of "fried ham and beefsteak, hot biscuits, butter, molasses, big boiled Irish potatoes steaming hot, fragrant coffee served with cream, in cups and saucers, and some minor goodies in the shape of preserves and the like." I guess it was fortunate he wasn't issued a grenade so he could embark on some creative fragging, but he reports he was unresentful of the privileges of rank. He describes the intolerable monotony of camp in the rain; nothing could be more depressing. He quotes with approval General Sherman's comment in his memoirs that "rain in camp has a depressing effect upon soldiers, but is enlivening to them on a march." Evidently, on the march the men would remove their shoes and socks, roll.their pant legs up to the knees and walk squishingly through the yellow mud, "despising wind, and rain, and fire."
Letters from the troops were often the only reliable source of news to counter the innumerable rumors that attended every battle. Folks would crowd into the local post office when-the mail delivery arrived; the clerk would holler out the name of the addressee, then flip the letter to him or her through the air, which would be promptly read to the entire assemblage. On one occasion when one of Stillwell's letters arrived, his father was not there, but volunteers quickly offered to gallop out to the Stillwell farm to deliver the letter, have it read, and return with news from the front.
War is hell. And Stillwell recounts several poignant stories. The most heart-rending is of the father who learns his son has been wounded at the siege of Vicksburg, travels via riverboat to Memphis, where he sees his son being taken off on a stretcher to the hospital. Stillwell happens to meet up with them in the street when the stretcher bearers stop so the father can give his young son, who is clearly dying, an orange. "And the poor old father was fluttering around the stretcher in an aimless, distracted manner, wanting to do something to help his boy - but the time had come when nothing could be done. While thus occupied I heard him say in a low broken voice, 'He is - the only boy - I have.'"
Do not read this passage while listening to the Largamente assai section of the 4th movement of Sibelius' Fifth Symphony!
