A few days later [mid-September 1862, after Antietam] we went into our “homesick camp,” near Hagerstown, Maryland for six weeks.  Oh!  The homesick boys!  I was out on picket duty on the Potomac River, watching General Lee’s army which was in camp on the other side, so I had no time to get homesick.  I’ll admit I did dream of home at night sometimes.

~ Conrad Smith¹⁾Conrad Smith, My Early Life and The Civil War, 1920, page 25

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“An encampment can not be said to be guarded at all if the watch is maintained so loosely that the enemy may steal through the chain of sentinels or outposts.  The chief object of the outposts is to insure complete security in the rear, so that the troops may arise and delay an attack of the enemy, should he approach the outpost, and also prevent the enemy from getting OUT of the lines at all.  The distance between the adjoining sentinels is fixed by positions near enough to each other to prevent any one from passing between them without being seen.”³⁾Camp and Outpost Duty for Infantry 1862, Daniel Butterfield

 

 

James Heaslett wrote to his niece, Isabella Guyton, how the men were placed on picket:

The regiment is formed in line and marched out perhaps two miles and sometimes more from Camp and they commence and leave 5 or 6 and sometimes 10 men and a corporal or sergeant and we ahve to waken up and place them on a post for two hours and we can lay down to sleep or sit at the fire for tow hours more and rise some other men and place on the post.”⁵⁾“The Crack Regiment of Pittsburgh”: The Men and the Community of the 139th Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1860-1865, Sam Bartlett, Thesis submitted to Dept. of History of Amherst College, April 12, 1996

In an October diary entry, Captain Abraham Snyder had written that he had been in charge of a group as large as twenty-five.  Picket duty afforded special opportunities to the men of the 139th, some more enjoyable than others.  In Snyder’s case, the chance to command men from outside of his company brought only headaches.  He wrote, “In our squad we have 10 men of Co. A (my own) 10 of Co. F (Capt. Marsh) & 5 of Co. D Capt. Monroe 0 these last gave me more trouble than all the others – in fact, if I had a Co. of just such men as these, I would resign at once – they keep by themselves swear constantly & play cards and are into almost every kind of mischief…”  Snyder’s experience with the men outside of his own company revealed the dual effect of local recruiting on soldier discipline.  If, for some, the local nature of companies created respect for officers that held prominence in their hometowns, for others, the chance to serve with friends had deleterious effects on behavior.⁶⁾“The Crack Regiment of Pittsburgh”: The Men and the Community of the 139th Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1860-1865, Sam Bartlett, Thesis submitted to Dept. of History of Amherst College, April 12, 1996

 

As the fall progressed, the men of the 139th became acquainted with life in the army.  In a letter home, nineteen year old Mercer County recruit John Beil reported that, “Soldiering agrees with me pretty well if my health only continues on the way it has I am very well satisfied.  I have not had no sick moment since I left Camp Howe.”  A soldier’s life seemed to agree with Adjutant Albert Harper also, who wrote home in late September, “I am well, never in better health or spirits, and my only complaint [is] that I am very sleep and dirty.”  Despite their good health, there were certain aspects of military service which took some getting used to.  Among those, both Beil and Harper had already become frustrated with the unpredictability of a soldier’s existence.  On October 21, he wrote, “Again we are under marching orders and one of the most disagreeable things in the army is to be under ‘marching orders’ without having any stated time for leaving.”  In another letter he commented, “The questions where are we going? when going [sic] to leave? and what are we going there for? are seldom asked by old soldiers.”  For Beil, the infrequency of a visit from the paymaster was of concern.  In his first two letters home he commented that he was in need of some money, as there was, “no knowing when we get Pay. [sic]”⁷⁾“The Crack Regiment of Pittsburgh”: The Men and the Community of the 139th Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1860-1865, Sam Bartlett, Thesis submitted to Dept. of History of Amherst College, April 12, 1996

Of equal importance [to letters and supplies from home] to the men of the regiment were the pieces of news that were enclosed in the letters that they received.  Often, parents, siblings, spouses and friends would enclose newspaper articles in their letters or at least apprise the soldiers of the local news.  Although the soldiers were directly involved in the war effort, they remained fairly ignorant about the general scope of the Union military campaigns and even the expected movements of their own regiments or brigades.  In the fall of 1862, Albert Harper wrote to his parents from Hancock, Maryland, “Perhaps you could tell me what we are here for?  I[‘m] sure I can’t tell you.”  Later in the month he commented, “by the papers I see they expect some big fighting here – so that is what we came up for – I have no idea where we are going ever.”⁸⁾“The Crack Regiment of Pittsburgh”: The Men and the Community of the 139th Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1860-1865, Sam Bartlett, Thesis submitted to Dept. of History of Amherst College, April 12, 1996

From the standpoint of military preparedness, the regiment made vast improvements in their first month of service.  Writing to the father of Albert Harper, Major William Moody commented that “The 139th Regt. is making rapid strides in drill and general proficiency if the compliments paid it both by General Couch[commander of the Sixth Corps, 3rd Division] and General Howe [commander of the Sixth Corps, 3rd Division, 3rd Brigade] may be considered honest and I think they were so intended.”⁹⁾“The Crack Regiment of Pittsburgh”: The Men and the Community of the 139th Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1860-1865, Sam Bartlett, Thesis submitted to Dept. of History of Amherst College, April 12, 1996