3

"All Over Camp Curtin"

About the time the regiment was trying to elect a commanding officer, one Bucktail wrote home: "We managed to get into Camp Curtin by God's grace and by God we are in Camp Curtin still." By mid-June many of the men had been in camp six or seven weeks and there were no arms, no uniforms, and, worst of all, no pay. The officers of the Warren County company had in some manner furnished uniforms for their men. They were the envy of the rest of the rather ragged outfit. Even before the organization of the regiment there had been considerable company drilling. One fellow complained of drilling "three or four hours without stopping in summer's heat with winter clothes" Another put it is way: "weather never so hot, dust never so deep, shade trees never so scarce as at present." But one Tioga County boy, with perhaps more military zeal than the rest, complained that at Camp Scott they drilled eight hours a day, whereas at Curtin they did considerably less. When asked by a stranger as to how much they drilled, another Bucktail replied: "Drill be damned, we train !"

The boys at Camp Curtin in the early summer of 1861 were the eager volunteers. They had been among the first to answer the call. Bounty men and substitutes would come later. The early recruits wanted to go to war, not just to a "camp of instruction." A chief topic of conversation about

Curtin was as to when the regiments would leave there. Even the men who thought they spent too much time drilling had to admit to a certain amount of boredom. One Bucktail wrote home that the "tedious monotony of camp life is relieved occasionally by a fight, a guard house row, or the drumming out of an unworthy soldier."

The saloons of Harrisburg were not unknown to the lumbermen from the Wildcat District. The city had for years been a market place for upstate timber and many a lumber raft had had Harrisburg as its destination.

Some of the Bucktails, when it was possible, sought solace from camp tedium in the local bars. Sometimes some of them overdid it. On one occasion two Bucktails, who were demonstrating their "wildcat yell" too lustily, were arrested for disorderly conduct. News of this incident found its way home. Possibly the home folks got some measure of satisfaction from the fact that the Harrisburg paper quoted in the hometown gazette, after mentioning the arrest, tolerantly added regarding the Bucktails as a whole: "they are an orderly lot even though they wear the rough dress of the mountaineer and have known only the backwoods life."[1]

Another time three Wildcats, tired of confinement in the Camp Curtin guardhouse, broke out. To further show their contempt for the discipline which they were just then feeling, the three promptly sneaked out of camp and made for the nearest saloon. The story goes that the soldier who finally herded the three recalcitrant recruits back to the brig (by then well in their cups) was none other than Tom Kane himself.

It is fair to conclude that the following bit of doggerel is the gross exaggeration of some Irish recruit whose Muse led him into hyperbole.

Oh there's whiskey 'tis certain, all over Camp Curtin

In ilegant bottles, wid niver a flaw.

A'most everybody has plenty of toddy

Hid round in the corners, dape under the sthaw.

Oh the Guards they turn out, wid a terrible rout,

Wid their guns on their shoulders, they make a great show;

But the Wild Cats make fun o' them, divil a wan a them,

Find out at all where the whiskey does go.[2]

Finally came the day when the Bucktails were issued uniforms. It was with much satisfaction that many a lumberman turned soldier, exchanged his heavy tattered rags for what would become the Union blue. The issue consisted of a dark blue jacket (called a blouse). light blue trousers, blue cloth fatigue cap, and heavy black shoes, soon to be dubbed "gunboats." Several companies received havelocks from ladies groups at home. One can be quite positive that if any of the Wildcat lumbermen received havelocks they threw the useless "head-bags" away and that quickly. Other outfits were doing just that after experimenting with them a bit.

Private Joseph D. Ramsdall, Company H, Sixth Pennsylvania Reserves, came in from guard duty and sat down in his hot tent to gleefully scribble a letter. He had what he considered a huge joke with which to regale the home folks.Ramsdall was a member of Captain Julius Sherwood's company which had planned to join the Bucktail Regiment until Sherwood and Kane started a feud. Possibly Private Ramsdall still secretly wished he had a bucktail on his cap. The Bucktails had just been issued their arms. The Kane Rifle Regiment, the rifle regiment of the Pennsylvania Reserve Corps, attired in their new blue uniforms had been called out and were standing in line of companies to receive the

long-awaited guns. Instead of being handed a shiny Minie gun, as the men fondly hoped, each Bucktail caught a

Harpers Ferry musket And what was worse the year "1837" appeared on the stock and barrel of each. Consternation gave way to indignation within this rifle regiment now armed with pre-Mexican War muskets. Some of the men refused to take the muskets back to quarters. Others were content to merely resort to loud profanity toward Kane who had promised them Minies, toward the governor, toward the Army in general. Private Ramsdall ended his letter with an account of the profanity. One of the Bucktails told the rest of the story. The regiment engaged in so much grumbling over what it chose to consider a near insult that Colonel Biddle felt it necessary to give them a neat little speech. Biddle weighed slightly more than one hundred pounds, but he had the knack of calming irate soldiers. He assured them the regiment would be a rifle regiment and in time they would receive rifles. The little colonel astutely added that as for himself, he would face the Rebels with a brickbat if necessary. The men calmed down, and those who had not done so began to minutely examine their Harpers Ferry muskets -vintage of 1837.[3]

While the Bucktails took their colonel's word as to better weapons in the future, they were not at all happy with their old-fashioned muskets. Many of , them had brought with them, and had been compelled to send home, superior arms,which they themselves had tested in the northern mountains, and in which they had developed confidence. Many of the men were knocked off their feet the first time they fired their Harpers Ferry muskets. The back action or "kick" was due to a chamber in the old gun caused by the bore being deeper than the tube. This had come about as a result of the conversion to percussion of the old muzzle-loader flintlocks as originally made in 1837. Someone discovered that for 20 or 30 cents a musket, the condition could be corrected. Two

or three dimes rammed down would fill the chamber and elimmate the back action. Three buck-shot and one ball or, as the men grew to call it "three cheers and a tiger "was the usual load.[4]

By the second half of June the Bucktails considered themselves sufficiently trained for at least a little fighting, albeit there had been, as yet, no regimental drill. They expected (and correctly so) intimate, personal, elemental fighting, and the fact that they had had only a few weeks of company drill troubled them not in the least.[5] The men at Curtin generally resented the comparatively rigid discipline enforced by Colonel Biddle, who had been placed temporarily in command of the camp. The transition from civilian to soldier had only begun, but the volunteers craved action. The news that was making the rounds at Camp Curtin on the evening of June 21 was a pleasant surprise to the Bucktails. The Kane Rifle Regiment was moving out next morning headed south.[6]

At dawn the Bucktails, together with the Fifth Reserves and Battery A of the Reserve Corps Artillery were onto the Pennsylvania Railroad bound for Huntingdon. The entire expedition was under the command of the Bucktail colonel. At Huntingdon the troops were transferred to the Huntingdon and Broad Top Railroad which took them to Hopewell, where they spent the night. During later campaigns many a Bucktail would look back to this first day's trip with a wry smile. One boy from the Wildcat District thought that thousands turned out at every station to cheer them. At Huntingdon a warm meal was provided by the local people and enough home-cooked dainties were left over for their haversacks.

Leaving Hopewell on a Sunday morning at four o'clock, the men had knapsacks on their backs for their first march.

Although broken by a stop at noon at Bloody Run for another home-cooked meal, the green soldiers began to learn how heavy gear and a gun can become. The day was hot and the roads thick with dust. Even the toughest lumberman was glad when the column was halted for the night a short distance from Bedford. During the night rain drenched the camp and the regiments remained at Bedford two days. Then they pushed on to near Cumberland, taking two days to cover the twenty-three miles. This was the same distance as from Hopewell to Bedford, which took them only one day when they were fresh from their train ride.

"Camp Mason and Dixon" was established just north of the Line. At their first opportunity Company F the Irish Infantry from Carbon County planted their flag for a moment or so just south of the Line. They wanted to be able to claim that their colors were the first of the Reserve Corps to leave the state. No one ever denied the technical correctness of their claim. There was little other frivolity during the nearly two weeks which the regiments spent at the camp.

Regimental drill was commenced with such discouraging results that Biddle ordered all captains to devote extra time to company drill. At the same time the colonel increased his efforts to make the Bucktails act like a regiment on the drill field.

Rations were scarce and water was inadequate. The ground was somewhat marshy. There was considerable sickness. These conditions coupled with all the drilling and guard duty took the edge from the usual Independence Day spirit which the men were wont to have at home. The Fourth of July passed with "only three guns fired at noon." Undoubtedly the men in the ranks wondered why they had been marched to the southern edge of Pennsylvania and

halted. To engage in regimental drill on a rocky hillside? To camp in a marsh with short rations? As far as the ranks were concerned, "Camp Mason and Dixon" had become "Camp Misery and Despair" and that is what they called it. Why had the brass sent them there?[7]