Following the American Civil War Sesquicentennial with day by day writings of the time, currently 1863.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1861.

It is cooler tonight and freezes some. The news from Missouri is rcd with great Satisfaction. It now looks as though the Rebels would receive but little else than hard knocks everywhere our troops have got up to the “fighting pitch” and have become too wary to be caught in any more traps. The mail bag which was seized the other night on the River contained letters from many people here, implicating some of them in Treasonable practices. Some have been arrested, and more of the writers will be. I have been at home all the evening with the boys. Wife & Holly went to Market. It is a place which I abominate and this living from “hand to mouth” is no way to live independantly.

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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.

Saturday, 21st—Nothing of importance today. I went on guard. There is some talk of making Jefferson City headquarters for the various detachments of the army within fifty miles of this place.

December 20th.—I went down to the Senate, as it was expected at the Legation and elsewhere the President would send a special message to the Senate on the Trent affair; but, instead, there was merely a long speech from a senator, to show the South did not like democratic institutions. Lord Lyons called on Mr. Seward yesterday to read Lord Russell’s dispatch to him, and to give time for a reply; but Mr. Seward was out, and Mr. Sumner told me the Minister was down with the Committee of Foreign Relations, where there is a serious business in reference to the State of Mexico and certain European Powers under discussion, when the British Minister went to the State Department.

Next day Lord Lyons had two interviews with Mr. Seward, read the despatch, which simply asks for surrender of Mason and Slidell and reparation, without any specific act named, but he received no indication from Mr. Seward of the course he would pursue. Mr. Lincoln has “put down his foot” on no surrender. “Sir!” exclaimed the President, to an old Treasury official the other day, “I would sooner die than give them up.” “Mr. President,” was the reply, “your death would be a great loss, but the destruction of the United States would be a still more deplorable event.” Mr. Seward will, however, control the situation, as the Cabinet will very probably support his views; and Americans will comfort themselves, in case the captives are surrendered, with a promise of future revenge, and with the reflection that they have avoided a very disagreeable intervention between their march of conquest and the Southern Confederacy. The general belief of the diplomatists is that the prisoners will not be given up, and in that case Lord Lyons and the Legation will retire from Washington for the time, probably to Halifax, leaving Mr. Monson to wind up affairs and clear out the archives. But it is understood that there is no ultimatum, and that Lord Lyons is not to indicate any course of action, should Mr. Seward inform him the United States Government refuses to comply with the demands of Great Britain.

Any humiliation which may be attached to concession will be caused by the language of the Americans themselves, who have given in their press, in public meetings, in the Lower House, in the Cabinet, and in the conduct of the President, a complete ratification of the act of Captain Wilkes, not to speak of the opinions of the lawyers, and the speeches of their orators, who declare “they will face any alternative, but that they will never surrender.” The friendly relations which existed between ourselves and many excellent Americans are now rendered somewhat constrained by the prospect of a great national difference.

21st.—Did ever husband and father need the comforting aid of the help-meets of home as I need them this evening? See my table. Six full foolscap sheets of letters from home —read, re-read, studied, spelled, and now to be answered. I wonder if any body ever imagines the value of a letter to a soldier. His power of estimating must be large indeed, if he can appreciate it. Were it not for this value I should never have the courage to attempt answering all this pile. But then, I have no room to arrange all these with a view to replies, for my whole tent is as crowded as my table, full of evidences of the kindness—I will dare to say, of the affection of so many of my kind lady-friends. The dictates of kindness and benevolence may crowd upon you articles of comfort and utility, but it requires the affections to indicate the numerous little tokens which peep from the packages of useful things now piled around my tent. They strengthen and they cheer me. I shall endeavor, right here, to make mysel worthy of all this confidence. What a field this is for the exercise of the “unseen heroism” of life!

But how in the name of Legerdemain do our friends contrive to get so many things into a little box? Why, my 10×10 tent is absolutely full. It is well, too, that the box was opened just to-day, for things in it were getting considerably “mixed.” Two or three preserve and jelly jars, and a bottle of pickles had been broken. The contents had escaped, and to make amends for their long confinement, like colts let loose, they ran considerably. The pickles had “pitched into” the sugar. The jelly had made a dash at the tea. The nutmegs were luxuriating in a mixture of preserves and coffee. There seemed to be an inclination amongst these belligerents to get into “a muss” generally; but I “offered mediation.” After two or three hours of back-ache work, I got the conglomerates restored to their original elements, and gave the men a look at them. They were gratified and thankful. I do not think one man looked on one of these evidences of home rememberance but felt strengthened in his resolves to perform manfully the duties which he had undertaken.

Yesterday we had the first fight worthy the name, since we joined the army. General McCall sent out a Brigade (about 4,000 men) to reconnoitre. They came upon an equal number of the enemy, and after taking a good look at each other, concluded to “go in.” In this fight we gained a decided victory. No mistake this time. We fought and won.

We lost a few men—about ten killed and some thirty wounded. Amongst the latter is Lieutenant Colonel Kane of the Pennsylvania “Buck Tails.” He is a brother of the late Doctor Kane, of the Arctic Expedition.[1]

Yesterday a few Surgeons met in my tent and gave expressions to their feelings against a self-constituted organization calling itself the ” U. S. Sanitary Commission.” I have had very little acquaintance with its members, or with its mode of doing business. From the almost universal prejudice which the Surgeons have against it, I infer that it must possess many bad or troublesome traits of character. I have naturally enough imbibed impressions which are anything but favorable in regard to it. At our little talk, yesterday, it was determined amongst us’ that the Commission must be ” written down.” I am selected to do the writing, my professional brothers to furnish the data. This morning I commenced my first article, but before it was finished, the roar of cannon and the bursting of shells arrested my attention, and I left my writing to watch the progress of the battle of Drainesville. In a little while, the wounded began to be brought in, and the whole being new to us, the Surgeons, now, for the first, began to examine their stores and appliances for wounded men. We had very few things which we needed, and whilst mourning over the delay necessary to procure them from Washington (some 9 miles distant) the agents of this Commission, having got wind of the progressing fight, had loaded up light wagons with their sanitary stores and rushed to the scene of suffering with the very things most needed. I confess that I feel a little ashamed to have been caught in the act of writing such an article, under such ciscumstances. Something good may come out of Nazareth yet. I think I shall wait and sec} rather than be induced by the prejudices or opinions of others, to commit an act, perhaps a wrong, which I may be sorry for.


[1] Battle of Drainesville.

Saturday, 21. — A cold, bright winter day. Sent a dispatch home to Lucy. Paymaster here getting ready to pay our men. The James D. (Devereux) Bulloch[1] was a good friend of mine at Middletown, Connecticut, (Webb’s school) in 1837-8 from Savannah, Georgia — a whole-hearted, generous fellow. A model sailor I would conjecture him to be. Rebel though he is, I guess him to be a fine fellow, a brave man, honorable and all that.

It is rumored that Great Britain will declare war on account of the seizure of Slidell and Mason. I think not. It will blow over. First bluster and high words, then correspondence and diplomacy, finally peace. But if not, if war, what then? First, it is to be a trying, a severe and dreadful trial of our stuff. We shall suffer, but we will stand it. All the Democratic element, now grumbling and discontented, must then rouse up to fight their ancient enemies the British. The South, too, will not thousands then be turned towards us by seeing their strange allies? If not, shall we not with one voice arm and emancipate the slaves? A civil, sectional, foreign, and servile war — shall we not have horrors enough? Well, I am ready for my share of it. We are in the right and must prevail.

Six companies paid today. Three months’ pay due not paid. A “perfectly splendid” day — the seventeenth!!


[1] Pasted in the Diary is the following clipping from the Richmond News of November 30: — “Captain James D. Bulloch, who lately successfully ran the blockade while in command of the steamship Fingal, has arrived in Richmond. He thinks there is a likelihood of Lord Palmerston’s proving indifferent to the question involved in the seizure, by Captain Wilkes, on the high seas, from a British vessel, of Messrs. Mason and Slidell.”

Captain James D. Bulloch was the “Naval Representative of the Confederate States in Europe” during the Civil War. It was under his direction and through his energy that the Alabama and other cruisers were built and equipped to prey on American commerce. In 1883 Captain Bulloch published in two volumes a most interesting narrative, entitled “The Secret Service of the Confederate States in Europe, or How the Confederate Cruisers Were Equipped.” It may also be recalled that Captain Bulloch was a brother of President Roosevelt’s mother.

DECEMBER 21ST.—Col. Bledsoe was in to-day. I had not seen him for a long time. He had not been sitting in the office two minutes before he uttered one of his familiar groans. Instantly we were on the old footing again. He said Secretary Benjamin had never treated him as Chief of the Bureau, any more than Walker.

December 21.—The Kentucky House of Representatives, by a vote of sixty-nine to eleven, concurred in the Senate’s amendment to the bill reported by the House Committee on Federal Relations, thanking the President for his modifications of General Fremont’s proclamation and Secretary Cameron’s report, and requesting the President to dismiss Secretary Cameron from the Cabinet.

At Baltimore, Md., this morning, the deputy provost-marshal overhauled the steamer George Weems, as she was about leaving for the Patuxent River landings, and arrested a man named W. T. Wilson, an Englishman, who had secreted in his clothing, and in a bladder in his hat, a quantity of morphine and quinine. He also arrested a man named Hanna, of Chester County, Pa., formerly of California. Both were supposed to be rebel agents.

—This morning a little before daylight, the pickets at Stump Neck, on the Potomac River, saw a boat with a man in it approaching from the Virginia shore. They concealed themselves till the man landed, when they arrested him. He brought with him a number of letters, which were taken charge of and conveyed, with the prisoner, to General Hooker’s head-quarters. Another man was waiting with a horse, upon which to convey the mail-bag. He was also arrested and the horse seized.

Early this morning, as the U. S. gunboat Resolute was on her way down the Potomac, from Washington, some pickets of rebel cavalry were seen at Holland Point, near the White House. Acting Master Tole, in command, fired a few shells among them, scattering the rebels in all directions. A number of them ran out of a house, near which their horses were picketed, and rode off as fast as they could. A boat’s crew was then sent on shore in charge of acting master’s mate J. L. Plunkett. On their way they saw some women and children busily leaving the houses. On entering, the building was found to be deserted, but there were traces of recent occupation by cavalry.—N. Y. Herald, December 23.

—Charles Anderson, brother of General Robert Anderson, addressed a large audience at Cooper Institute, New York, this evening. The cause of the rebellion he attributed to the check received by men in their greedy pursuit of political power.

—The Southern papers of this date are filled with articles expressive of delight at the prospect of a war between England and the United States, in reference to the seizure of Messrs. Mason and Slidell.

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Late addition to Vol. 3:

 

December 21.—In the Confederate Congress, an act was passed, entitling Kentucky to have twelve members in the House of Representatives.

A series of resolutions were also adopted, the third of which is as follows:

Resolved, That no peace ought to be concluded with the United States, which does not insure to Maryland an opportunity of forming a part of this Confederacy.

December 21 — To-day we came back from Dam No. 5 to our old camp in Martinsburg.