Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1863-12-11
Our armp Correspondence.
FROM THE FOURTH REGIMENT.
CAMP NEAR BRANDY STATION, Va, !
Novembnr Of I963

November 25, 1868.
Dear journal Amid the activities of the
autumnal campaign and our alternate cree
ton of quarters, now for the fourth time.) |
have never quite got ready to contribute to
your columns before marching orders broke
the spell OF camp life, and we were measuring
off, weary through familiar leagues, a,ong the
highways of war. Now, while expecting on
the morrow to plunge into the mist and din
of combat, at least to make the final move
ment Of the campaign, ere we are buried in
winter mud, will improve this perhaps last
opportunity, t. say through your columns,
what the comrades who yesterday started on
recruiting service. will perhaps say in person
- my fellow citizens Of Vermont, in their be-
half and still more in behalf oil the common
and glorious cause of the nation, to speak the |
honest sentiment Of soldiers heart, and |
make to them soldiers appeal. Per-
nit me to say feel manly pride, aye |
though it were my last utterance, in being of
the number who first rallied at the clarion
notes of war. and formed that brigade which !
for over two years, has played the part OF no
coward or sinecure in the Army Of the Poto-
mac. sttested by its marches and counter
marches OF hundreds and hundreds of weary
miles over full score of counties. and its
on nearly a score Of battle felos, whose ex-
ploits Of valor and heroic frmness have won
the highest eneomiums of commanders and
the press, and lent new halo to the ancestral
renown of our State. To fill up its ranks,
decimated by casualty and disease, in common
with those of regiments which have as nobly
and faithfully served and suffered on other
fields, you, fellow citizens of glorious COM
monwealth, are again called upon 10 volunteer
to come forth in the soldiers panoply, to
share with us the tolls and dangers OF camp
and campaign life, to aid in the great and
final struggle with armed rebellion to secure
that consumation which we have so long
struggled for, and now perhaps dimly can
foresee. Hitherto you have been slow to as
eume the name OF recruit, and have sbrunk
with horror from that Of conscrpt have
drained your purses as thoogh gold and not
''eternal vigilance was ''the price of liberty"
Hence our ranks have never been filled up,
and few have fallen IN the brunt of duty
and battle, az though we were many Almost
alone and unaided we have encountered the
foe, while you perhaps have been bar-room
croakers; or, pardon the allusion Sir. war
aiders, fighting immense battles in windy
paragraphs, or excaimng impatiently "why
does not the army move :" Yet the cause
to which you have as yet given but words
and slight material aid. has the same sacred
and weighty claim on you as upon us, for
none capable OF bearing arms are exempt by
law or right when TIE nations safety or life
is involved. No wealth OF high social posi-
ton or responsibility can exempt true ci,i-
zen from the post of honor and of danger in
the field. Under the late draft some regi-
ments were partly filed, the pi,tance Of men
you then dealt out being best used in that
way, and now again the old voluntary system
is resorted TO, and your free offerings solicited
on your country's altar.
What keeps you back / know there are
many reasons. Some hindrances should be
obviated some abuses rectifed, but the SOL
diers life has evils which cannot be remedied
The machinery OF war is too complex to work
with absolutely no collisions and for want OF
better system we must make the best of the
existing one, though mankiuds and citizen 8
rights are to be foregone by military neces-
sity. Yet the country demands the sacrifice,
as it does the hazard Of life and limb, and for
you to hold back il to array self against the
general good, aye more, to prove recreant 10
the holy trusts the glorious inheritance of our
fathers. Are you better than we, or are you
going to profit by our folly as you may term
It, and not be caught in the same snare p
That you can do perhaps, If your souls are 40
dsstardly as to shlrk, if you will leave the
traitor to triumph over us, and to perish like
Spartan heroes in the breach we have made,
instead OF joining us in one final charge, and
yet the CONSUMPTION act is too sweeping to al
low US to be thus left, though it drags you
like unwilling victims to the altar.
DO not say Vernon: has done better than
her sister states, she has been recreant we
say while her quota is untitled. for the enroll
ment proves, after all deductions, that she
has the men within her borders, not dis.
charged soldiers or beaIdless boys or diseased
imbeciles. but men in full strength aud yigor
men of property and influence who have ne
special reason now TO stay at home, snd who's,
example would De worth more than gold, OF
scores Of substitutes. Men Of property, o.
family, in professional life, still more the
clerk and student, the time may have been
when your duty was at home, but it is now
past. The exigency of the nation, not to say