Touch the Elbow - Blogging the Civil War

Note: the 18th Mass. breaks camp and boards a troop transport.


Starting from Camp California around noon, the 18th Mass. marched about five miles through "mud over shoe" to a wharf in Alexandria, arriving just as dark set in. From 10 p.m. to midnight 965 members of the Regiment filed on board the steamer "Elm City," one of 25 vessels contracted to carry Porter's First Division to Fortress Monroe. Officers were assigned to unfurnished State Rooms, while enlisted men claimed their own spaces on the floor of one of three decks.