Tuesday, 3d—Nothing of importance. It is quite noticeable that the men are now holding their heads erect without wearing the “dog collars” around their necks.
Saturday, December 3, 2011
3rd. Reached Camp Denison where were encamped 8,000 troops.
December, 3d.—There is a rumor here to-day that our troops are in possession of both Savannah and Pensacola. I do not believe it.
What do our leaders mean to do with us this winter? Here we are, the 3d December, a cold, freezing, windy day, in our open tents, without intimation of what we are going to do— with no more preparation for winter quarters than we had a month ago. Are we to be kept in this condition all winter? We are getting tired of McClellan’s want of vim. How long is he going to be “getting ready?” All is conjecture, except that the wind howls dreadfully around our tents this cold night.
This morning the three divisions of the army here sent out five hundred to a thousand men each, to beat the bush. This moment comes the statement that they woke up about four hundred rebel cavalry, surrounded them, and that they are even now endeavoring to fight their way out; that they have killed about fifteen of our men; that we have taken about two hundred prisoners, and are fishing in the dark for the rest. All this may be true, but I am getting to be a great doubter of the truth of anything I hear in camp. We shall know all about it to-morrow.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1861.
This has been the coldest day of the season yet. M. this morning stood at 28. Have been in the office all day. No particular news afloat. Went down to the Ave after dinner, bot some Carpeting of “Barnes and Mitchel,” 20 yards for dining room and 28 yards stairs Carpet. Wife went down and selected it. Called at Willards. Saw Hugh Hastings of Albany and some other gentlemen who I knew from NY. Came home about 7 o’c., read the Presidents Message which was delivered to Congress today. A plain, practical document.
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The three diary manuscript volumes, Washington during the Civil War: The Diary of Horatio Nelson Taft, 1861-1865, are available online at The Library of Congress.
December 3rd.—Drove down to the Capitol, and was introduced to the floor of the Senate by Senator Wilson, and arrived just as Mr. Forney commenced reading the President’s message, which was listened to with considerable interest. At dinner, Colonel D’Utassy, of the Garibaldi legion, who gives a curious account of his career. A Hungarian by birth, he went over from the Austrian service, and served under Bern; was wounded and taken prisoner at Temesvar, and escaped from Spielberg, through the kindness of Count Bennigsen, making his way to Semlin, in the disguise of a servant, where Mr. Fonblanque, the British consul, protected him. Thence he went to Kossuth at Shumla, finally proceeded to Constantinople, where he was engaged to instruct the Turkish cavalry; turned up in the Ionian Islands, where he was engaged by the late Sir H. Ward, as a sort of secretary and interpreter, in which capacity he also served Sir G. Le Marchant. In the United States he was earning his livelihood as a fencing, dancing, and language master; and when the war broke out he exerted himself to raise a regiment, and succeeded in completing his number in seventeen days, being all the time obliged to support himself by his lessons. I tell his tale as he told it to me.
One of our friends, of a sporting turn, dropped in tonight, followed by a gentleman dressed in immaculate black, and of staid deportment, whose name I did not exactly catch, but fancied it was that of a senator of some reputation. As the stranger sat next me, and was rubbing his knees nervously, I thought I would commence conversation.
“It appears, sir, that affairs in the south-west are not so promising. May I ask you what is your opinion of the present prospects of the Federals in Missouri?”
I was somewhat disconcerted by his reply, for rubbing his knees harder than ever, and imprecating his organs of vision in a very sanguinary manner, he said—
“Well, d____ if I know what to think of them. They’re a b____ rum lot, and they’re going on in a d____ rum way. That’s what I think.”
The supposed legislator, in fact, was distinguished in another arena, and was no other than a celebrated pugilist, who served his apprenticeship in the English ring, and has since graduated in honours in America.
I dined with Mr. Cameron, Secretary-of-War, where I met Mr. Forney, Secretary of the Senate; Mr. House, Mr. Wilkeson, and others, and was exceedingly interested by the shrewd conversation and candid manner of our host. He told me he once worked as a printer in the city of Washington, at ten dollars a week, and twenty cents an hour for extra work at the case on Sundays. Since that time he has worked onwards and upwards, and amassed a large fortune by contracts for railways and similar great undertakings. He says the press rules America, and that no one can face it and live; which is about the worst account of the chances of an honest longevity I can well conceive. His memory is exact, and his anecdotes, albeit he has never seen any but Americans, or stirred out of the States, very agreeable. Once there lived at Washington a publican’s daughter, named Mary O’Neil, beautiful, bold, and witty. She captivated a member of Congress, who failed to make her less than his wife; and by degrees Mrs. Eaton—who may now be seen in the streets of Washington, an old woman, still bright-eyed and, alas! bright-cheeked, retaining traces of her great beauty—became a leading personage in the State, and ruled the imperious, rugged, old Andrew Jackson so completely, that he broke up his Cabinet and dismissed his ministers on her account. In the days of her power she had done some trifling service to Mr. Cameron, and he has just repaired it by conferring some military appointment on her grandchild.
The dinner, which was preceded by deputations, was finished by one which came from the Far West, and was introduced by Mr. Hannibal Hamlin, the Vice-President; Mr. Owen Lovejoy, Mr. Bingham, and other ultra-Abolitionist members of Congress; and then speeches were made, and healths were drunk, and toasts were pledged, till it was time for me to drive to a ball given by the officers of the 5th United States Cavalry, which was exceedingly pretty, and admirably arranged in wooden huts, specially erected and decorated for the occasion. A huge bonfire in the centre of the camp, surrounded by soldiers, by the carriage drivers, and by negro servants, afforded the most striking play of colour and variety of light and shade I ever beheld.
Boston, December 3, 1861
Your letters were written under the cloud of Balls Bluff, and it is hard for us just now when every one is getting elated again to go back and appreciate the bitterness of which you speak. Yes, every one is in the clouds again, but I must confess my confidence has been too much shaken to be suddenly restored. I am oppressed by a combined sense of ill-luck and incompetence. A few words of Balls Bluff affair and then let us try to forget it. I am informed by Harrison Ritchie, who has been to Washington for the Governor recently and is in “possesshun of certing infamashon,” that there is no doubt that the advance was ordered by General Scott without McClellan’s knowledge, and the advance on Romney was ordered by him at the same time. The last succeeded and the first failed, and within ten days Scott resigned. The results of the reverse were however fatal, and much in the way that I imagined, the plans of the campaign were frustrated, and here we now are with a disconnected series of successes and reverses leading to little and effecting in themselves still less. So affairs now stand, and soon we must go into winter quarters, for today it has set in bitter cold. Still there are signs of promise in the sky and the blockade promises us far greater results than our arms bid fair to win. The South already is evidently starving, and if it is so in November what will it be in April? They are wild with terror at our naval expeditions and, in despite of all and everything, I never felt so confident of crushing them in time, if no foreign force intervenes, by sheer weight, as I now do. I have lost all confidence in our skill or courage, for the present; but passing events make it pretty clear to my mind that we are learning fast and that brute force is all with us.
Every one is fearfully anxious to hear from England of the reception of Mason and Slidell’s capture, and your letter in which you mention that the James Adger was watched created a good deal of uneasiness. The English precedents so clearly justify us that I cannot fear difficulty from that cause; but I do fear very much a popular clamor and feeling of hatred towards us which will make the occurrence of future difficulty very easy. However, every day gained is a great thing now and I think there will be a Southern collapse within four months, if only we can hold over that time.
But I have talked enough of politics. How do they like my going into the army in London? Did they expect it? Were they pleased or disgusted? As for me I have nothing new to tell you in that regard. The regiment is still here, but I do not expect to be ordered to join until they move to Carlisle barracks, which will probably be very soon, for winter has set in in earnest. .. .
DECEMBER 3D.—Several members of Congress came into my office and denounced the policy which the government seemed to have adopted of permitting Yankees, and those who sympathize with them, to be continually running over to the enemy with information of our condition, and thus inviting attacks and raids at points where we are utterly defenseless. They seemed surprised when I told them that I not only agreed with them entirely, but that I had really written most of the articles they had read in the press denunciatory of the policy they condemned. I informed them, moreover, that I had long since refused to sign any such passports as they alluded to, at the risk of being removed. They said they believed the President, in his multiplicity of employments, was not aware of the extent of the practice, and the evil effects it was certain to entail on the country; and it was their purpose to wait upon him and remonstrate against the pernicious practice of Mr. Benjamin.
December 3.—Major Bowen’s Cavalry were attacked at Salem, Dent Co., Mo., this morning at four o’clock, by three hundred rebels under command of Colonels Freeman and Turner. They charged upon a house in which some of the Federal soldiers were sleeping, killing and wounding fifteen, shooting them through the windows and as they emerged from the house. Major Bowen, whose head-quarters were at the court house, one hundred yards distant, rushed out and rallied his men, when a street fight took place. The Federals charged upon the rebels, drove them from the streets, and followed them some distance out of town. They were perfectly cleaned out and fled. Many of the rebels were killed and wounded, but the number was not ascertained. Major Bowen had possession of the town, and sent to Rolla, Mo., for a surgeon and a reinforcement of fifty men. Capt. Dodd, of the rebel force, was badly wounded and taken prisoner. He said Turner had one hundred and thirty men under his command. Among the dead on the Federal side was James Ayres, of Company A, commanded by Captain Stevens. The following were wounded: William Cartwright, Wilson Randolph, John Hooper, and Samuel Matlock, of Company A.—St. Louis Democrat.
—President Lincoln’s Message and the accompanying documents were transmitted to Congress to-day. The Message is clear and explicit in its statements, practical in its suggestions, and eminently conservative in its treatment of the exciting subjects which depend upon the political questions connected with the rebellion. The President urges no scheme of general emancipation or of arming the slaves. “In considering the policy to be adopted for suppressing the insurrection,” says the President, “I have been anxious and careful that the inevitable conflict for this purpose shall not degenerate into a violent and remorseless revolutionary struggle. I have, therefore, in every ease, thought it proper to keep the integrity of the Union prominent as the primary object of the contest on our part, leaving all questions which are not of vital military importance to the more deliberate action of the Legislature.” This declaration is eminently satisfactory to the country.
—The Western Virginia Convention in session at Wheeling to-day, changed the name of the new State from Kanawha to Western Virginia.
—This morning, Gen. Fitz John Porter sent out a small scouting party to make a reconnoisance in the vicinity of Vienna, Va. It consisted of a squadron of the Third Pennsylvania Cavalry, composing Companies F and M, under command of Captain Bell, numbering one hundred and twenty men. The first information received from Captain Bell, was the arrival at Gen. Porter’s head-quarters this afternoon of an orderly, with the intelligence that the squadron had met the enemy in considerable force— said to be five hundred cavalry and two hundred infantry—and that our men had engaged them and suffered much.
Upon learning this, General Porter in person, with a force of four regiments of infantry and two companies of cavalry, started to the rescue of Captain Bell’s party, and met them a short distance beyond Fall’s Church, on their return.
Captain Bell reports that they proceeded a short distance beyond Vienna, when they encountered the rebel cavalry that General Wadsworth designed to cut off. The party were defiling through a tract of woods only wide enough for the column to march by twos.
The first indication of the presence of the enemy was the opening of a galling fire upon the rear of his column, just entering the wood, by a body of infantry concealed in a house near at hand. Captain Bell ordered his men forward, but on emerging from the wood, they were met by two or three hundred of the rebel cavalry, who opened upon them with carbine and pistol. Many of the horses in Captain Bell’s party, not being practised to the discharge of arms, became unmanageable.
The National troops were at once thrown into confusion; but each man, fighting on his own account, discharged his piece at the enemy, emptying several saddles. Two of the rebel horses were brought in. Lieutenant John W. Ford and Sergeant Smith, of Company F, were taken prisoners. Sergeant Parker, of Company M, was seriously injured by the fall of his horse. He was brought back to camp.
When the Nationals returned to camp, forty-five men were missing. The number killed and wounded is not known.
—Henry Fry and Jacob M. Hemslier were hung at Greenville, Tennessee, for bridge-burning.—Henry C. Burnett, Representative from Kentucky, was, upon the motion of Mr. Dunn of Indiana, expelled from the Congress of the United States for active participation in the rebellion.
