Wars are waged by young men on battlefields. But, before that, they get trained up in camps; and before that, they were somewhere else, doing something else: perhaps working, helping their families, or being educated. It is one of the many cruelties of war that those men must pause their lives, and all their activities, to go fight and perhaps never resume them—for they may not return or, even if they do, they may return with no semblance of the youth and innocence they once had. And yet, despite this cruelty, there are seemingly countless instances of it.
In Kalamazoo, Michigan, Charles B. Haydon had been a law clerk, after studying four years at the University of Michigan, but when the war broke out, he enlisted and found himself a sergeant in the Michigan Infantry. At a time of his life when he could have been establishing his career as an attorney, he was now a soldier making preparations to go to war. While camped outside Detroit, Haydon recorded in his diary the training—and folly—of the freshly enlisted Michiganders.
Overnight into May 3, the men were still settling in. They “had a straw bed & each a blanket & a shawl,” but still, nearly every man had a cold and three were worse off than that. In the afternoon, Haydon saw himself as the acting second sergeant but was promptly and “sharply berated” by the colonel “for not knowing [his] business.” Haydon “very soon learned” though and vowed that he “shall not be caught again on that point.” The next day, Haydon and the men lounged in the sun, and when Haydon heard the colonel “blow up” other enlistees, he could not help but to laugh heartily at them—just as they had done to them the day before.
Although Haydon found such moments humorous, other moments disconcerted him. He observed that those men “who are living better now than they ever lived before grumble most in many cases.” There was also tragedy: Haydon saw “a good stout boy”—Henry Carrier—fall sick and die, being the first of the enlisted to die in Haydon’s company and perhaps in the whole regiment.
Then, there were the vices. Haydon opined: “If the men pursue the enemy as vigorously as they do the whores they will make very efficient soldiers.” The fact was that idleness brought many of the men to such activities which also included “[c]ard playing, profanity & the stealing of provisions.” Many had already deserted in the first few days, perhaps unsure if they were prepared for staying through the duration of the war—however long that might be. But by May 6, it was then compulsory to stay at the camp; no more desertion without consequences. Haydon opted to stay.
By that third day into his time at the camp, he had come around to being used to his new life and surprised himself by how quickly he “came into it.” As things were, the only thing that troubled him was to “get up at 5 A.M. & drill at double quick time before breakfast.” He saw that “if we remain here 6 or 8 weeks it will be dull beyond all description,” but he also saw the benefits of camping with his fellow enlistees: “This open air life will be good for me I think. It seems like old times to be out doors all day.”
Spending time outside had its positives, indeed, but it also came with a lack of sleep. One morning, Haydon was on morning watch, slept about three hours, and deemed “standing guard [to be] the most tiresome service I have.” After 27 hours on duty, he found himself with “a sour stomach & a tendency toward looseness of the bowels.” He blamed the food: the butter was bad, the dinner consisted of soup made “from the fragments of breakfast,” and the potatoes were “of poor quality.” But “[t]he bread thank God is good,” and there was beef, pork, “tea, coffee, sugar & sometimes milk.” Whether it was the food or catching up on sleep, his health soon improved.
As much as there was discipline within the ranks, there was much to want and to learn. In those early days at the camp, the men did not yet have a uniform and would “soon be a very ragged [regiment] if we do not get it.” Haydon hardly had a thought about law anymore; he wrote, “I eat, drink, sleep, drill & study Hardee’s Tactics as much of course as if I knew no other business. I think I must have been intended for a soldier.” His new life had supplanted the old, and it was not clear when he would return to the life of a law clerk.
He could have an idea, though, of the time he may spend in the infantry. During their time at the camp, the men learned that they could only go into service if they enlisted for three years or the duration of the war, and Haydon wrote, “If it was not for business I would not hesitate for a moment.” He continued: “After all we can do little while the war continues & we should do all we can to aid the vigorous measures which the Administration is taking.” With that support of Abraham Lincoln and the federal government’s approach to the war, there could have been little doubt that Haydon was to remain a soldier; he was devoted to the cause.
He could have wished his fellow soldiers were equally as determined to participate in the cause. Haydon, when many men refused to go to church on May 12, concluded his journal entry: “We must have more discipline or we shall have nothing.”
Haydon would be a soldier for the rest of his life—never again a law clerk, or lawyer. He fought in some of the biggest battles of the war—First Bull Run and Second Bull Run, the Peninsula Campaign, Fredericksburg, and Vicksburg. But he died nearly three years after this diary entry, in Cincinnati, Ohio, in March 1864—on his way home, on furlough—from pneumonia. He rests in Hamilton Cemetery in Decatur, Michigan.
Last Best Hope of Earth 
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