September 15, 1862

My name is Richard Bailey, I’m twenty-one years ol’ and I fight for the Union in the twelfth Massachusetts Regiment led by Maj. Elisha Burbank. I was born and raised in Massachusetts and I was a blacksmith before all the shenanigans. I joined the army for one reason and one reason only, to free the colored folk. You would think that a war would be full of action but a ninth of the time we’re bored, which is precisely why I am writing this diary. I’ll start off with the food, man it’s just awful. Every time you take a bite, you’re fighting to keep it down. Hardtack, which is the usual, is an extremely salty cracker that can break your teeth. They use the salt to preserve the hardtack. Salt pork is a delicacy; it’s the best thing we got. Man, I miss my ma’s cookin’. That’s not the worst part. We have to sleep in crammed tents, twenty soldiers at once when the capacity is only twelve. If you have to relieve your bowls, you have to dig a ditch and do your business there since we have nuthin’ better. Man it smells and there ain’t nuthin’ to wipe with except leaves. If you pick the wrong plant and it happens to be poisonous you’re in for a world of pain. The hurt ain’t from being teased by your friends for walking funny, it’s the burn that comes with it. Quickstep–you can probably guess why we call it that–is the worst! It killed more of my friends in camp than in battle. I’ve seen someone go through it and it is awful. Within a week he was gone. I would say about half of the army has had it at one point or another. Thank God almighty that I haven’t. But there is something worse, the agony of being wounded and having to go through surgery. Sometimes there is no chloroform to put the victim to sleep and the surgery gotta be performed with a conscious patient; well, until he passes out from the excruciating pain. If you have to get a limb amputated, they place a tourniquet around your limb to seize blood flow then they give you chloroform to ease the pain. Then they dig in with the ol’ saw and knife and after they’re done with you they stitch you right up and wait till you wake up to see you’re missing a limb. What do we do to relieve boredom? We sing songs like “Always Stand on the Union Side” and it goes a little like this “Always stand on the Union side, And battle for the right. With conscience clear, we'll laugh at fear in the midst of the boldest fight. Why turn against our native land, the mother whom we love? Who ever rules with gentle hand, till children recreant prove?” Sometimes we even capture cockroaches and organize a race. We usually bet our rations on which cockroach will finish the race first. We make a path with out muskets and the fastest one across wins. It is risky but the payout can be very rewarding just like the damned war we fight in. That’s what we go through every damn day and that’s not including the bloodshed.

September 16, 1862
And there is more to it than that. Even in camp, there is discrimination. White men are always have their wounds treated first, no matter the severity; in contrast, black men are unjustly forced to wait. They often bleed to death from the lack of treatment. Even with all this goin’ on, I never lose the word of God. God is the reason I’m not dead. I read the Bible every morning right before roll call and so does the rest of my tent. Roll call is usually around six o’clock in the mornin’ and I guess they do it to make sure that we haven’t deserted or nuthin’ like that. After roll call we go right into the drills. The drills range from marching in column–in straight line–and in a company front–a single line of men standing side by side–to running several miles in the rain. It’s vigorous but we have done it so often that it has become second nature. After that we do other drills like loading our rifles and target practice. We use percussion muskets, which is a huge improvement over the flintlock musket.  What’s so special about the percussion? Well, you can fire it in any weather, including rain! It’s fantastic. It also shoots farther and has more impact. If you get a flintlock wet it is useless but if you get a percussion musket wet, it is still ready to fire. For target practice we use wooden boards or tin cans. To hit the target, one needs to account for bullet drop and wind, which can be hard sometimes. I’m being called to reinforce Union troops that have encountered rebels near the Potomac. We’ll be marching in ‘bout thirty minutes. I hope I live to tell the story. May God have mercy on our souls.