I have seen and conversed freely with many staff officers, and been among the men, wounded and well—if any can be called well, where all are feverish with seven days and nights of fatigue and exhaustion and starvation and excitement. One, a Major-General, said, "I have not been asleep, nor have I tasted food, in five days. I have only sustained myself with coffee and cigars." As to the men, the following is a fair sample of statements commonly made: "My regiment has had, for the last five days before arriving here, two days' rations; what has been eaten of this has been uncooked; during that time it has made five hard marches, and fought five battles; one third of it has fallen in killed or wounded, and not one man has been shot in the back. One third of what remains is now on picket duty in the woods, which the enemy is shelling; the other lies yonder, in the mud, sleeping on its arms." This was during the rain, which fell in such torrents day before yesterday. Yesterday the enemy was attacking again, and the whole army in the line of battle up to the time we left.
The exultant confidence of the army in itself is beyond all verbal expression. It has grown out of the experience of its ability to resist and foil and terribly punish desperate assaults made upon it, as is supposed with forces greatly superior in number. It says, proudly, "All that men can do, we can do." But there is also the consciousness of a terrible strain upon its energies, of an unnatural strength, and the reflection is frequent that there must be a limit to every man's endurance.
Rest and recuperation,—how are they to be had? The first only by the relief of reinforcements; the second only by good diet and favorable hygienic circumstances. Eastern Virginia is all malarious,—the banks of James River notoriously so; the army is chiefly upon a moderately elevated, slightly undulating table-land; the river on the south side; swampy ground at no great distance on the other sides. It is open, airy, dry,—a healthful point, upon the whole, as any that could be selected east of Richmond. But the sun will lie exceedingly fierce upon it, and it is supposed the army has lost two thirds of its tents. Probably a majority of the men have lost also their knapsacks and blankets. Many were without caps or shoes. The area held is small, and will be crowded. If the enemy is active, as it would appear his policy to be, the officers will be too much occupied with the immediate military necessities of the position to give much attention to police duties. Even if they should be well disposed, the excessively fatigued and exhausted condition of the men, and the necessity of reserving their strength from day to day for the struggle with the enemy, will forbid the constant labor which would be necessary to prevent a terrible accumulation of nuisances, until at least reinforcements shall arrive so large that no more than the ordinary quotas will be required for guard and picket duty. After such tension and trial, a rapid reduction of force must also occur from sickness, and those not on the sick-list will suffer from the lassitude of reaction from excitement. Under these circumstances, all our experience shows that it will be hardly possible to enforce requirements, the observance of which must be essential to a healthy camp.