The Maine bugle ... campaign; 1-5 Jan. 1894-Oct. 1898 - Maine.gov

BUGLE ECHOES. 87
DR. WILLIAMS NAMED.
Dr. Loceko J. GiBBS, Co. H, Eighth Maine, of Chicopee Falls, Mass., writes :
I feel interested in your enterprise and will certainly aid you to the extent of sub-
scription to the Bugle and would gladly aid you otherwise if I thought anything I
might write would be of interest to the " boys " who served in my own and other reg-
iments. Vou know the horizon of the individual soldier in the ranks was a limited
one and an} thing like history from him would lie limited and reasonably inaccurate.
I would suggest Dr. Henj. Williams of your city as one well calculated to hll this
position, and I will later try and contriliute something to fill space a. least.
Gen. Henry Uoy.ntun, Col. Eighth Maine, of ,\ugusta, writes:
Vour favor of the seventeenth found me helpless from a sudden and very severe
illness, from which I am now just again getting upon my feet, b^t I am so debilitated
as to be until to attempt to write anything longer than a brief letter. My idea is that
a sketch ought to embody incidents, real events, and occurrences that made up the
real life of the regiment. I shall be glad when 1 become physically able, to record
the various interesting episodes and striking events that are the salient points of the
old Eighth, from the many notes and recollections that I have, but first it would be
essential to know the exact amount of space in type at my disposal.
CAMP PENOBSCOT.
Mrs. Perky Arnold, wife of .\rnold of Co. C, Eirst Maine Cavalry, Bangor, Me.,writes :
Inclosed you will find note for one dollar and a half ($1.50) which my husband
owes for the Bu(;le. We waited a few days thinking we could get money to send
money is hard these times; we will soon have it and for the next year, for we could
not get along without the Bucjle. I think I enjoy it as much as my husband, for I
have to read every word of it aloud as his eyes trouble him. It is not hard to read
its contents, no matter how tired I am. J forget self and am again with the boys in
blue, and re-live the past again. I think it is more real to me as I was at Augusta all
of the time the First Maine Cavalry was encamped there. What a handsome regiment
it was, when marching to the front. How changed when they came home
We always had to laugh at Col. Goddard. His riding ! ha ! ha ! So you see we
have much to talk about, and we never tired of hearing of husband's army life. I
saw in the last two Bucles mention of W. L. Boyd, now in the west. Ask him if he
remembers going to the ball of the non-commissioned officers in old Meonian hall,
and of a captain of one of the companies losing hat or cap and coat, he taking
Billy's to get into camp, promising to send them right back so B. could see his best
girl home; we waiting there till past 4 o'clock A. M., then taking table covering from
the dressing room, to use for cap, so they could get home and he to camp. When
he got there captain was sound asleep; when aroused he said: "I was so sleepy
that I thought it was my own." What a laugh the boys had. It was a long walk
from down town then (now cars make easy work of those hills). Those days were
full of fun to all concerned, little anticipating the hardships and exposure of actual
service. Many of those little incidents 1 remember most pleasantly. I have some
papers taken from the Court House at Fairfax, where the regiment camped in
April '62; the one I have is dated in the 10th year of the reign of George the Second,
which was about the year 1741. In these papers is a very interesting description