May 20, 1863. Inspections

May 20 1863
Blockhouse at Catletts

William Henry Jackson

Scotts Bluff National Monument 

"Wednesday 20th. Grand inspection of everything by Capt Hill at 2 P.M. Guns were splendidly clean & brilliant as a whole. He expressed himself as very well pleased. He said, also, that our Co & our guns were the best he had seen." ~ Diary of Horace Barlow (UVM), 120-21, Horace Barlow, Pvt., Co. C, 12th Regiment


"May 20. The battery of artillery stationed at this post was inspected yesterday. In consequence of the weather being so extremely warm, we have only two and one-half hours' drill per day, which is mainly in the bayonet exercise. 

"Picketing is getting to be somewhat tedious -- requiring two-thirds of the regiment to perform it, and thereby giving only two days out of seven for rest. Cavalry is sent out every day to patrol the roads in this vicinity, and patrols from the regiment are sent out every night."~ John C. Williams, Corporal, Co. B. 14th Regiment, Life in Camp 122 (1864)


"ORVILLE WHEELER was was a sturdy, well-behaved young man and very anxious to enlist and his father gave consent reluctantly because so young. His age at enrollment was just past 18 years. His constitution was undermined at Wolf Run Shoals camp, where for ten long weary weeks exacting duties and the severity of the weather taxed to the uttermost the physical endurance of the strongest. At this camp he sickened and went into the hospital, recovered and moved with the regiment to Camp Widow Violet; here he had a relapse, was again taken into the hospital where he died of disease May 20, 1863." ~Ralph Orson Sturtevant, Pictorial History of the 13th Regiment Vermont Volunteers 645-46 (1910)