Wednesday, 11th—I am having my first experience of living in a tent. We are under the strictest military rules, and we are just beginning to realize that a soldier’s life is not all glory.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
WEDNESDAY 11
Quite cool and very windy today. “Willie” is quite Smart today. The trouble with him was all owing to his stomachs having rebelled against the unconstitutional demands which he in his voracity made upon it. A dose of castor oil quelled the insurection and all his internal operations returned to their accustomed quiet state. Nothing new today. Went down to the Ave and made some small purchases, bot some Iron brackets for the mahogany shelf which is a leaf from a Table of John A Washington, brot away from his abandoned house by the soldiers.
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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.
11th.—I have just received a letter from a lady friend of mine aye, and of the soldiers, too, in which she says she “cannot but think of the suffering patriot-soldier, with nothing but a tent above his head, with no covering but a single blanket, and but so little care when sick.” This induces me to put on record here, the following description for reference, a long time hence, when, if this war continues, I may wish to read it and compare it with the hospitals then existing, with the improvements which experience shall have causes to be adopted:
My hospital at present consists of five large tents, fourteen feet long by fifteen feet wide. They open into each other at the ends, so as to make of the whole one continuous tent, seventy feet long. This will accommodate forty patients comfortably. On an emergency, I can crowd in fifty-five. In the center of the first tent is dug a hole about three feet in circumference and two and a half deep. From this hole there passes through the middle of the tents a trench or ditch two feet wide and of the same depth, which terminates in a large chimney just outside of the fifth tent. It is covered for about ten feet of its length, at the beginning with broad stones, the next fifteen feet with sheet iron, thence to the chimney with stones and earth. A fire is made in the hole at the beginning of this ditch, which, through its large chimneys, has a great draught. The blaze sweeps through its whole length, and by means of this fire, no matter what the weather, or how changeable, the temperature in the hospitals need not vary three degrees in a month, and at all times, night and day, have full ventilation without varying the temperature. Since the adjustment of the difficulties, I have my full quota (10) of nurses, and these are never, night or day, less than two on watch. The cots for the sick are ranged side by side, with their heads to the wall and feet to the center of the tent, leaving just room between their sides for the nurses to move freely, and for the patients to get up and down, and between their ends for the ditch, on which, over the covering already described, is a ladder or rack, with slats so close as not to admit the feet between them when the nurses and patients are walking on them.
So long as there is room in the hospital, no patient of my regiment is permitted to be confined to his tent by sickness. The moment he is sick enough to be confined to bed, he is brought to hospital, where he remains constantly under the eye of the Surgeon and nurses till he recovers. There are, to-day, thirty-six in hospital, each, instead of lying with “nothing but a tent above his head, and with no covering but a single blanket,” is on a comfortable bed of straw, the tick emptied and refilled once in four weeks, with all the covering they want. I have plenty of good sheets, and not less than two blankets for each, besides what they bring with them. They are never without fresh meat, rarely without rice, potatoes, jellies in abundance, tea, coffee, sugar, milk, and I am now purchasing for them two dozen chickens a week; and I have this day a hospital fund of not less than one hundred and seventy-five dollars, which is increasing every day, from from which I can replenish or add to the comforts now allowed.[1] This is a description of my own hospital. I regret to learn from the U. S. Medical Inspector who has visited me to-day, that other hospitals are not so well provided or so comfortable. I regret it, because there is no reason why all may not be provided just as well, so long as we remain near a good market; and if they are not, there is blame either in medical or military departments, which ought to be corrected.
From ninth of November to this date, the time I was shut out from the medical supervision of the camp, there have been more deaths in the regiment than during the whole five months before, including the sickly season of August, September and October. The health of the regiment now, however, is good, and I hope it will remain so during the winter.
[1] It may be a matter of some interest to the reader to know how this hospital fund is realized. It is thus: The soldier is entitled to certain rations every day, and these continue, whether he is sick or well. When well, they are drawn by the captains of companies and distributed to the men. When sick and in hospital, the Surgeon notifies the Commissary of the fact, and they are not issued to the Captain, but credited to the hospital. The Surgeon draws them in whole, in part, or not at all. The days’ rations are worth from 17 to 20 cents per man. Now, any economical and honest Surgeon can feed his sick men well when near a market, and save to the hospital fund at least one third of this amount, for the purchase of delicacies. Give him thirty in hospital, he can realize two dollars per month on each man, ($60 per month.) In a neighborhood where markets are very high, this will be proportionally reduced. Where he cannot buy at all, it will be increased.
Wednesday, January [December] 11.— A cold morning, threatening rain; rained a little last night. Turned off bright, clear, and cold in the afternoon. Had a headache in morning, drank a little bad wine last night; all right after dinner. Living so cozily in my new quarters. Oh, if Lucy was here, wouldn’t it be fine! How she would enjoy it! Darling! I think of her constantly these days. A drill; formed squad in four ranks; marched, closed in mass.
December 11th.—The unanimity of the people in the South is forced on the conviction of the statesmen and people of the North, by the very success of their expeditions in Secession. They find the planters at Beaufort and elsewhere burning their cotton and crops, villages and towns deserted at their approach, hatred in every eye, and curses on women’s tongues. They meet this by a corresponding change in their own programme. The war which was made to develop and maintain Union sentiment in the South, and to enable the people to rise against a desperate faction which had enthralled them, is now to be made a crusade against slaveholders, and a war of subjugation—if need be, of extermination—against the whole of the Southern States. The Democrats will, of course, resist this barbarous and hopeless policy. There is a deputation of Irish Democrats here now, to effect a general exchange of prisoners, which is an operation calculated to give a legitimate character to the war, and is pro tanto a recognition of the Confederacy as a belligerent power.
Bird’s Point, Mo., December 11, 1861.
Our cavalry brought in 16 prisoners to-night, about 10 last night; a band of Thompson’s men took a couple of boys from our regiment prisoners, out 10 miles from here at the water tank on the railroad. The owner of the house happened to be outside when they surrounded the house and he scooted down here with the news, and by 2 o’clock we had a lot of cavalry and infantry en route for the scene of action. The cavalry started them out of the brush and captured this 16. The Rebels killed one of Colonel Oglesby’s men. They did not recover our men but started up and lost another gang that probably has them.
We will be in our quarters next week although we don’t need them. It is rather pleasant here now. I took a swim yesterday. ‘Twas confounded cold, but I wanted to bathe so I took the river for it. We haven’t had a man complaining in the company for a week. We buried one poor fellow last week, but he would have died at home. When I was home last I weighed 142, now I weigh 160. Can you imagine me.
DECEMBER 11TH. —Several of Gen. Winder’s detectives came to me with a man named Webster, who, it appears, has been going between Richmond and Baltimore, conveying letters, money, etc. I refused him a passport. He said he could get it from the Secretary himself, but that it was sometimes difficult in gaining access to him. I told him to get it, then; I would give him none.
December 11.—Two companies of infantry, under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Rhodes, and two companies of cavalry, under command of Major J. J. Mudd, had a skirmish with the rebels near Bertrand, Missouri, to-day, losing one man. They took sixteen prisoners and a number of horses and fire-arms.—Missouri Democrat, December 12.
—In the Legislature of Western Virginia, in session at Wheeling, to-day, Mr. Carksadon, of Hampshire, introduced a resolution to prohibit any person engaged in the rebellion from ever holding office in the State. Mr. Snider, of Monongahela, introduced a resolution modifying these parts of the code which prohibit writing or speaking against slavery, so as to make them conform to the spirit and genius of the National institutions.
—The Eleventh Michigan infantry, twelve hundred strong, commanded by Col. Win. J. May, arrived at Jeffersonville, and were at once despatched to Bardstown, Ky. They are a fine body of men, and will doubtless do good service in the Union cause. Michigan has done nobly thus far, and the Eleventh is considered as good as, if not better than, any regiment yet sent to the war from that State.—Louisville Journal, December 12.
—Reliable news reached Fort Smith, Arkansas, to-day, from the Indian country, from which it is learned that a large number of Creeks, Cherokees, and Seminoles have joined Opothleyholo. The Cherokee regiment, under Colonel Drew, has disbanded, a part have joined the Nationals, a portion have returned home, and a part remain with Colonel Cooper. Opothleyholo is encamped about the Big Bend of Arkansas, with a force variously estimated at from two to four thousand men, well armed, and all naked to the waist, and painted.
Colonel Cooper is encamped within five miles of the Nationals, with a small force, consisting of Colonel Simms’ Texas regiment, Colonel McIntosh’s Creek regiment, and the Chocktaw and Chickasaw regiment.—Fort Smith (Ark.) News, Dec. 12.
—Five vessels of the stone fleet, and the ships George Green and Bullion, of Gen. Butler’s expedition, sailed to-day from Boston, Mass.
—An expedition, under Commander Rodgers, U. S. N., left Port Royal harbor, S. C., and explored Ossabaw Sound, Ga. It passed up the Vernon River, Ga., and was fired on by a fort on the eastern end of Green Island, without damage. Returning to the Sound, the expedition sailed up the Great Ogeechee River, and landed at Ossabaw Island, but found it abandoned. No batteries, except the one on Green Island, were discovered.—(Doc. 224.)
—This morning a party of rebels commenced firing on some National pickets in the vicinity of Dam No. 4, on the Potomac, near Sharpsburg, Md., but were forced to retreat to the woods, more than a mile from the river, after losing seven killed and many wounded. When the rebels disappeared, a party of National troops crossed the river to reconnoitre, but were forced to retreat by a company of rebel infantry. Before reaching the river, however, their escape was cut off by a troop of eighty cavalry, and the whole party, after a slight skirmish, captured. No assistance could be sent them by the National troops on the Maryland side of the river, and it was afterward ascertained that the prisoners had been taken to Martinsburg, Va.—(Doc. 225.)
For the last two weeks I, with four militiamen, have been on detached duty guarding a siege gun in position at the Smithfield house, on the eastern outskirts of Winchester. But to-day, December 11, 1861, in the Smithfield house I volunteered to join Chew’s Battery, an artillery company that was organized in Jefferson County about the first of November, for the express purpose of operating with Colonel Ashby’s regiment of cavalry.
