“Where’s Registration?”

by Private Lee Taylor, CSA

with pictures from Corporal B. A. Stuart, CSA

and based on additional notes provided by Sergeant James W. Nichols, CSA and Private Opelijah G. Ranck, CSA

Captain Robert Stecker, CSA, would probably like for us to tell you that he was in no way involved in the events described in this article

We will keep Private Ben Farley’s name out of this article, except to assure his father that his son had absolutely nothing to do with any shenanigans that might be described herein.

Prolog – Travel and Rendezvous

Sergeant Nichols and I had met up the night before the happenings described herein. The date was Wednesday, June 26, 1862. Due to traveling difficulties in these times, he and his always lovely wife skirted the Federal lines so that the Sergeant and I could travel on together the following day to the position our boys were trying to hold, as orders had come to provide signal support (we had been on separate missions for the President and were thus away from our unit). Sergeant Nichols had gathered up a large number of supplies for the ensuing days of turmoil, as had I, and he was somewhat worried about the capacity of the wagon I had liberated to haul our goods, but I assured him that we had plenty of room.

After a brief mission in town on the morning of the 27^th, the Sergeant and I got the horses hitched up to the wagon and headed out for Richmond. We arrived near the little town of Rockville in Virginia near the appointed meeting place when we met up with Private Opelijah G. Ranck. As many of you may know, Opelijah has the misfortune in these times of having a turn-coat twin-brother, Glenn, who has been spotted with a Yankee signal detachment on numerous occasions. I, myself, have seen his twin on the field and I will swear before my God that I cannot tell them apart. And that is where our adventures in what is now called the Seven Days Campaign (‘though it only lasted for three days) begins…

Chapter 1 – Where’s Registration?

It was already quite sweltering when we came upon the rustic setting of what was to prove to be a very interesting few days. As is usual with these government-organized operations, no one seemed to have a clue about what we should do. Someone with a hammer, a few scraps of wood and a piece of charcoal had nailed signs to the trees in the woods that indicated the names of familiar army organizations. As our wagons approached a rustic spot alongside the wooded avenue, we saw the sign for the organization to which we are assigned, PACS. We decided to set up a bivouac area alongside the road in hopes of seeing the General’s staff when they arrived. During several hours of jawing and reconnoitering of the camp area, we were approached numerous times by other soldiers looking for “registration” (an interesting practice in certain parts of the army where they actually like to know the names of soldiers who have shown up for duty, instead of just counting the heads to find out how many soldiers are there) and where we thought they should put their wagons. Apparently they must’ve thought we were more important than we really are, as we had no more idea where this registration thing was than they did. Although I might be one for a weaker form of a central government than what Mr. Lincoln is trying to impose upon us, I think the past few days has dissuaded me from any misconception I might have had about the practicality of anarchy.

Chapter 2 – Where’s the PACS staff? Also, What’s PACS?

As I said, we never did see the PACS staff. As a matter of fact, not only did we not see PACS staff that day, they never did show up during our entire stay at our wooded hermitage. One thing interesting about our location in camp was the large number of artillery men camped across from us. Now, I’m thinking some of these fellas have had their heads jarred a bit too much by so much firing of cannons and other large guns. One of them tried to set up camp in our allotted area; he even asked us who in tarnation is PACS. Apparently he thought we were the “Polish American Civil War Society”. I’m not sure what kind of books he’s been reading, nor where he came up with such a strange notion, but I pray to the Lord that God will take care of this man’s family as he clearly is losing the mental faculties he needs to provide a good Southern family with the sustenance that it requires.

After a few hours of waiting (to no avail, I might add), we decided to forage for food in the capital (that’s Richmond for any of you Yankee spies reading this article).

Chapter 3 – The Beginnings of Shanty Town

Upon our return to camp, we found things no better organized than when we left. So Sergeant Nichols (who, as far as we could tell was in command, at least of all of PACS) gave the order to set up camp. Our location was quite good, perched on a hillside overlooking two small lakes. Set in the woods like that, we were likely to have ample shade, though I guessed that sleeping on that hill might provide opportunity for more night-time acrobatic maneuvers to keep from rolling down the hill that I had hoped for. Of course, as nature is rarely a cooperative creature, it started to rain as soon as we commenced setting up our camp. We set up our two A-frame tents and one dog tent (the Sergeant likes a great deal of ventilation) in fairly short order and were able to get our belongings out of the wagons and into the shelter of the tents before nature had had its way with our goods.

Now, it being quite early in the evening, we were in no way tired and wanted to sit outside and chat for a long spell before lights out. Not wishing to spend too much time in the rain, Private Ranck and I donated our rain ponchos to the cause of engineering a makeshift fly. I know that we’re not really supposed to have flies, at least that’s what the officers keep telling us, but we figured if we could put one together with ingenuity and what materials were on hand, we deserved to have a fly to sit under. Besides, there were no officers around to tell us one way or the other. So we got out some pieces of rope, used some long poles picked up off the ground and put us up a nice looking 2-piece tent fly. It provided us a nice location for a long evening of relaxation and chatting.

Chapter 4 – Necessary?

Usually, we just make do. In recent months, however, the army has seen fit to institute regulations for the necessary that seem a bit like overkill. Imagine being forced to use a completely self-enclosed box made of a green (or sometimes blue) slippery material. And things don’t even go into a hole in the ground! A large fire-pump-like wagon comes along and cleans the thing out. Honestly, we saw just such an outfit this past weekend!! Well, when we arrived there were a couple of privies that escaped the army’s notice. The green material appeared to be quite old and the doors were permanently askew. Our brave sergeant went to investigate and discovered that these green boxes didn’t even have a bottom and weren’t placed over a hole in the ground! Can you imagine such a thing? Needless to say, we had no intention of placing our tents downhill from such objects!

Chapter 5 – The completion of Shanty Town

Well, due to the absence of any general staff to keep us honest, we put up our tentage as any good soldier of the Confederacy would. We lined up the fronts of our tents, but the company “street” after Captain Stecker and Corporal Stuart caught up with us on the morning of Friday, June 28^th, consisted of 3 A tents and 1 dog, with our nearest neighbors being quite a distance away. The Corporal’s A tent had a curious artifact in it. When he put his bedding down on the ground, there was a large stick jutting up from the middle of the bedroll. We called this the “Corporal Hook”. Although he was inclined to chop it out, the positioning of this hook proved quite advantageous in keeping the corporal from sliding down the hill during the middle of the night. The Captain and Corporal, upon seeing our fly, decided to complete the picture with one of their own. Being the Captain, he was a bit smarter than us and used gum blankets with no slot for the head, so the water wouldn’t run through the hole. By the time we were done, the number of ropes running around our camp to hold our flies up made it look more like a spider’s web than a signal camp. We were quite proud of it anyhow and christened it “Shanty Town”.

Chapter 6 – The easy way to get to the Sutlers

After getting our little town organized, we decided to head for the sutlers. Normally we would just walk to the sutlers, but the sparsity of foot traffic and other encumbrances made it quite easy for us to park our wagons right in front of the sutlers. This was rather a lazy thing for us to do and I’m sure the horses were none too happy about being used in the heat for such a task, but it sure made it easy for us to get our goods back to camp by using the horse-drawn wagons.

Next we proceeded to registration with the army. The Captain and Corporal saw that the overall command staff had arrived that morning and set up their large tent for registration. When we arrived, a civilian with several of her small children had apparently obtained a pass for herself and her children earlier in the day and was wandering the camps. It appears that the army was actually charging a fee for the passes and this woman wanted her money back, as there was nothing and no-one for her children to see.

Chapter 7 – The Monitor vs. The Virginia: Battle of the Ironclads (well, sort of)

One of the things we heard rumors of was the arrival of the U.S.S. Monitor via the waterways into the lake behind our camp, which was fortunately hidden from their view. We wandered down to the lake, being sure to keep out of the sights of the Monitor’s guns to see the ship, as we had only heard about the Ironclads and not seen any ourselves. It was quite a sight and unlike anything I had seen before, though it was much smaller than I had imagined.

We had heard that the C.S.S. Virginia was going to come and show those Yankee seamen just how to fight on the water. Unfortunately, we heard much later that the Captain of the Virginia was taken quite ill and could not command his ship into the harbor. Fortunately, we had sufficient artillery with the shore batteries to keep the Monitor at bay.

Chapter 8 – It will all get straightened out after the meeting

As many of you know, the Captain is ever the optimist. He found out during the afternoon that there was to be a staff meeting with General Clark that evening. After hearing that, the Captain seemed overjoyed as he declared that all of the disorganization in our camps would be completely “straightened out after the meeting”. Now, I don’t think we’re the types to rub it in and say, “we told you so”, but this is one case where the Captain was sorely mistaken. He had yet to see the extent of the chaos that could ensue.

Chapter 9 – The 5-second rule for steaks and how not to cook your taters

Opelijah’s a pretty good cook. He had gathered up some potatoes that he had cut into long skinny strips and a few steaks and some vegetable grease and was going to cook us up a nice meal. Everything was going fine until Private Ranck decided the vegetable grease in his pot was hot enough for the taters to go into the oil. Let’s just say that caution would have been a better idea than whatever it was he was exercising on that occasion! The fireball he created made the burning of Washington back in ’14 look like a lit cigar. I’m surprised he has any hair left at all! I will say, though, that these were the best taters I had ever consumed.

Opelijah also managed to drop a steak on the ground before it made it into the pan (I think it was still mooing and just got away from him). Knowing that we would never throw away a good steak, Opelijah picked up the steak, dunked it in the water bucket, and slapped it into the pan with the rest of the steaks. After finishing the steaks, he produced a store-bought sauce, named “A1”, for the steaks. This sauce was so good that I actual saw Corporal Stuart bend over and lick the spare sauce clean off his plate!!!

Chapter 10 –Back-Order Depot and other profiteers

Another little point of interest about this dinner was the Captain’s demonstration of his skill with a sharp knife. I have seen him make toothpicks from a stick before, but he actually made a fork this time! Sergeant Nichols, upon seeing the Captain’s handiwork, had sympathy for his plight and loaned him a proper fork made of metal. I’ve been informed that the Captain is going to mass-produce these when he is able to return to his job after the war at the Back-Order Depot.

Chapter 11 – Behaving like a Yankee

The Captain gave us the bad news that evening after the meeting. General Clark needed Private Ranck and I to pose as Yankees and sneak into the Yankee army so that we could signal their army’s intentions should there be any action in the following days. Opelijah was able to scare up a Yankee sergeant’s uniform and enough of a Yankee private’s uniform for me to wear that we looked a fair bit like actual Yankees in the uniforms.

Chapter 12 – The Battles, Day 1

On Saturday, we woke and breakfasted before getting ourselves organized for the action that we felt was approaching. I should probably mention at this point that a sixth signalist that we discovered in camp on Thursday joined us. The Reverend Farley had somehow caught up with our little army and his son, Private Ben Farley, had been on pass to spend some time with his family. The Captain talked Private Farley into joining our group, so we had a fair complement of signalists for any action that might come up, especially considering the task of espionage that Private Ranck and I had been asked to undertake.

After getting organized, Opelijah and I put on our Yankee suits and headed for where we were told the Yankee army was forming. We successfully snuck into their ranks and even convinced their general, a General Heim, that we were his signalists (that Opelijah sure can spread the snake oil when he needs to!). It was frightfully hot that morning at Beaver Dam Creek, but we tolerated it as was needed given the circumstances. We had heard rumors among the Yankee army that they only numbered about 50 men – that’s about half strength for a company! However, when we arrived, there appeared to be more like 150 men, though I must say that some of those Billy’s sounded like they were good ole Virginia boys. We knew the strength of the Confederate Army was about 350 (not that those Yankees would ever get that out of us, though!!). When we saw them on the field, they looked a might smaller than that, maybe around 200-250. We still aren’t too sure what happened to the other 100 men.

We found out from the Captain’s flagman that the Confederate Army was on the move. We let him know where we were, in hopes of saving them from being ambushed by the Yankee guns. The fighting was hot and heavy, and we were able to send numerous communications during the Battle of Beaver Dam Creek and the ensuing battles of the weekend in order to keep the Captain informed of our positions and our actions. After a confusing end to the battle (I’m sure only history will tell who really won the 3 battles we participated in this weekend), we had a several hour restful time while we proceeded to Gaines Mill. This battle started with he Yankee army (Private Ranck and I still in tow) on a large knoll overlooking a valley. Their skirmishers, including a small group of the Pantaloon Brigade… er, I mean Zouaves (you know, the fellas that wear the bright red baggy Arab pants), were the first to encounter our boys coming out of the woods. Unfortunately, the Yankees had the upper hand until Sergeant Nichols got involved. With just his pistol (which he later informed us wasn’t even loaded!), his courage, and a fair amount of underarm odor (or at least that’s the only reason we could think of for them to behave the way they did), he was able to drive the Zouaves back and win the moment.

After a hard day’s work, we snuck away from the Yankees and found our way back into the Confederate camp. Corporal Stuart announced that he had dirty pants, a broken fingernail and just couldn’t go on the field again. Of course, we have no sympathy for such weak excuses!

Chapter 13 – An all-too-brief moment of respect and decorum

Following the battle, we were completely taken aback by a pair of visitors that were wandering through the Confederate Camp and visiting with the men. At first, I thought that I was delirious from the heat. But, no, it truly was the General himself, Robert E. Lee along with none other than our one and rightful President, Jefferson Davis. They were quite pleased with our skill and action on the field that day. We gussied ourselves up as much as we could on such a spur of the moment visit, but I have a feeling that they still felt a bit sorry for us, given the squalid conditions we were being forced to camp in.

Chapter 14 – Naughty naked men on horseback

And just what were you thinking? I am an upstanding Victorian Gentleman! Anyhow, with catcalls and other strange sounds, several members of a Cavalry detachment that were camping up the street from us galloped by us in just their pants on Saturday evening. The local constabulary followed shortly thereafter down to the lakeside. Apparently the lovely women of Rockville were shocked to see a group of Cavalrymen dipping in the lake in the “all together” and wanted them removed in the name of decency. From what I saw, I don’t blame them one bit.

Chapter 15 – Cleaning the necessaries

As I mentioned earlier, the current trend with these large green boxes being used as privies requires special apparatus for maintaining a certain level of cleanliness. Well, we had developed such ennui before dinner, that we actually went down to the necessaries just to watch them clean out the boxes (to be honest, I must admit that that was not the ONLY reason we had ventured down to the boxes).

It was during this visit to the privy that I noticed that there was paper labels glued to the insides of the doors of each of these green boxes. Out of curiosity, and knowing that I hadn’t needed any instructions in the privy since I was 4 or 5 years old, I decided to give them a gander. There were 2 very perplexing statements on these sheets of paper. The first said “1 Unit for every 10 Workers”. Now I’m assuming that “Unit” referred to one of the boxes. But I’m still quite in the dark about how you might get 10 men inside one of those boxes, let alone get all of them using it at the same time. All I know is that I’ll only volunteer to be the LAST of those 10 men to enter the box!!!!!!

The other statement was, believe it or not, even more bizarre. It said that the box was only to be used 350 times. This raises more questions than I am capable of fathoming, among them are “whose job is it to count?” and “how did they figure out the 350 in the first place?”

Chapter 16 – How to dry your dishes…

That night Private Ranck treated us to a new Italian dish for dinner; I believe he called it “Pisgetti”. There were also large round balls of beef in a sauce made from tomatoes to go with the long skinny boiled bread (I think he called it pasta). It looked mighty strange, but was quite good eating. There was no fireball during the preparation of Saturday night’s meal. When we returned to camp after a short stroll after dinner, we discovered that the Corporal had done the dishes. Usually we just let the dishes sit a spell and dry. The Corporal had an interesting idea, though. Using the spider’s web of ropes holding up our camp, he used clothespins to hang the dishes from the ropes. We’ll have to try that again someday, though I doubt that any general will let us do such a thing while on his staff.

Chapter 17 – The Battles, Day 2, a.k.a. The Conflagration

The following day, after a good night’s rest and good food, Opelijah and I returned to the Yankee stronghold to continue our duty for the South. After searching for a while, we found the Federals near Malvern Hill, where we joined General Heim and his men. Due to the extremely oppressive heat, it took a while before either side was ready to move. Captain Stecker held our army back until he was able to make contact with us. The battle opened with a considerable amount of artillery fire, including the 20-pounder that felt as if it was right behind my left ear and shook my whole body every time it fired. I hope none of its rounds hit their mark. As the Confederate front approached us, we noticed that several explosions went off in a field to their rear. Due to the dryness of the grass, these explosions quickly touched off a fire in the field. This was eventually put out by several loyal local citizens who did not want to distract our boys from the fight and also wanted to keep the ground to their rear open in case there would be the need for a timely retreat. Unfortunately, the blaze had not had its last word and flared up again. This required greater effort on the part of the citizenry, who brought out some of their heavy water pump wagons to the field. Our artillery, mistaking them for Yankee guns, fired upon them briefly until they realized their mistake.

After the battle was over, we rejoined our army, where a celebration of honor for General Clark’s service to the cause was going on. Apparently, Malvern Hill was the General’s last battle, as he will be retiring to take care of family business after his time in the army. Out of respect for him, Captain Stecker presented him with a Yankee Signalist’s hat insignia that had been captured in an earlier battle as a token of our esteem and respect.

Epilog – And you thought that was all…

Following this weekend of excitement near Richmond, we figured that nothing more could happen of note. We headed north with our three wagons to form with our army near Gettysburg up in Pennsylvania in the near future. We got as far as Fredericksburg when we decided to stop and forage. We found a restaurant run by a woman named Wendy and consumed good-sized portions of foodstuffs. The Corporal had to use the privy afterward, and we were all shocked to find that not only were their privies indoors, but there was water running in the privies. Why the water was shooting out of the hole in the ground is still something none of us understand…