Camp life in the West.
We are permitted to make the following extracts from a letter received from a member of Company F, in
Gillham's Regiment.
It is dated "Camp on
Valley Mountain, Aug. 11th, Sunday morning."
"Ever since we have been here, rain, rain, rain, has been the order of the day. It was raining when we arrived, it rains in the day, it rains in the night, and it is raining now. If you want to wash your face or get water to cook with, all you have to do is to dig a little hole in the ground and up boils a spring.
The other night I was waked up by feeling my
oil- cloth rather cold and damp, and on examining I found a little spring right under me!
Of lead- colored clouds and mud, we have an abundance — sunbeams are few and far between.
Yet people here say that they are suffering from a drought.
A few nights since our whole company was ordered out on picket.
My post was the one nearest the enemy, a few miles off, and as one of the pickets had been taken but a few nights before, you may imagine that I kept my eyes and ears open.
My two hours passed quickly away, with no other disturbance than challenging a lame horse who had forgotten the countersign.
You have probably read the "Black Water Stretches," by that miserable traitor, Porte Grayon.
This is about the same country he described, as we are in a few miles of
Black Water Creek, or the land of Canson.
You will think (and very rightly) that this is hardly a Sunday letter; but there is very little here to remind us that it is Sunday.
Indeed, I don't believe that half of the men in the regiment know that this is the
Lord's day; nor is this to be wondered at, as we have no chaplain, no religious services, and have the same duties to perform that we have everyday.
I have no book to read to-day but a Bible; I believe I read it trebly as much as when at home, from that very circumstance.
Monday, 5 o'clock A. M.
Blue sky and clear weather at last!
Hurrah for our side!
I think, on the strength of a clear sunrise, I'll have to wash my face this morning, and then hurry up this letter, as I'm on guard to-day.
