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

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Tuesday, January 14, 1862. — My old veteran orderly, Gray, says it makes his flesh creep to see the way soldiers enter officers’ quarters, hats on, just as if they were in civil life! [The] Twenty-sixth Regiment left today. Three or four inches snow. Some winter!

Spent the afternoon looking over a trunk full of letters, deeds, documents, etc., belonging to General Alfred Beckley. They were buried in the graveyard near General Beckley’s at Raleigh. Some letters of moment showing the early and earnest part taken by Colonel Tompkins in the Rebellion. The general Union and conservative feeling of General Beckley shown in letters carefully preserved in his letter-book. Two letters to Major Anderson, full of patriotism, love of Union and of the Stars and Stripes — replies written, one the day after Major Anderson went into Sumter, the other much later. His, General Beckley’s, desire was really for the Union. He was of West Point education. Out of deference to popular sentiment he qualified his Unionism by saying, “Virginia would stay in the Union as long as she could consistently with honor.”

General Beckley’s note from “J. C. Calhoun, Secretary of War,” informing him of his appointment as a cadet at West Point, and many other mementos, carefully preserved, were in the trunk. Title papers and evidence relating to a vast tract of land, formerly owned by Gideon Granger and now by Francis Granger and brother, were also in it. All except a few letters as to the Rebellion were undisturbed.

14th. Prin. Fairchild returned home. Stayed with John Devlin over night. Cooked rations and packed up.

 

Camp of the 83rd P. V.,

Hall’s Hill, Va., Jan. 14, 1862.

Dear Friend P—s.:—

You inquire about our probable stay here in this camp. I suppose you know just as much as I do about it or at least I know nothing and I don’t believe you know any less.

We have orders to be in readiness to march at an hour’s notice and have had this two weeks. Everything that we did not absolutely need on a march has been packed in our old knapsacks and sent to Georgetown. We are all ready and some think we will leave soon, but I am so skeptical that I don’t believe it. I do not know as I told you that we had got our new rifles. They are the Minie, the best gun made, and our boys are very much pleased with them. We are practicing at five hundred yards almost every day and make some good shooting.

The Westfield cavalry is still on the other side of the river. I think they have not got their horses yet. Conway Ayres (you saw him at Ashville) has been over to see me. He is the adjutant. I had not heard much about their health. Since we got into our French tents we have not had much sickness. There is little sleeping on the ground, as all or nearly all have bunks made of pine poles.

We have the most changeable weather I ever saw. On Sunday the air was warm as summer, and to-day we have two inches of snow.

How am I enjoying myself? Well, as philosophically as I can. We have rather dull times, but evenings we write letters or sing, and we have started a debating society with considerable interest.

January 14 — Snowed last night and this morning till ten o’clock, then cleared up with a very cold and unfriendly wind that swept fiercely over the bleak hills and mountains. We renewed our march, crossed Third Hill Mountain, the top of which was one vast stretch of pine thicket gracefully bowing under a crystal shroud of beautiful snow and glittering hoarfrost.

We reached Shanghai a little before sunset, and camped here for the night. Shanghai is a little hamlet on Back Creek, about twelve miles west of Martinsburg. That little old faded cap that General Jackson wears may shelter a brain that is filled with skeletons of strategic maneuvers, war maps, and battle-field plans, but if he thinks that we are India-rubber and can keep on courting Death with impunity, by marching in the snow with wet feet all day, and then be snowed under at night, he will find that by the time the robins sing again half of his command will be in the hospital or answering roll call in some other clime.

This morning when I got up I crawled from under four inches of snow on my blanket, and this was the third time we were snowed under in the last two weeks. We marched in the snow all day, and this evening I stood barefooted in the snow, on a little plank however, wringing the water not only out of my socks, but shoes too. My shoes are Confed. and the leather is only half tanned. I wrung them out this evening like an old heavy dish rag, and now they look like dog-feed. Looking at my dog-feed shoes sitting by the campfire is what causes the pessimistic reflections to troop through my brain.

Tuesday, 14th—Lieutenant Compton with five men went out to capture the man who fired into a passenger train last summer and killed the conductor. When the man saw them approaching to surround his house, he started to run for the timber. He refused to surrender and the men fired on him, shooting him through the thigh, but upon seeing that the man was severely wounded, Lieutenant Compton gave the order to let the man remain at his home.

January 14th 1862

This has been a wintry day, the ground covered with snow, air damp and chilly. M. about 27. Cameron, the Sec’y of War, has resigned. Edw’d M Stanton takes his place. Ostensibly he retires voluntarily, the Papers say so. But in reality the “outside pressure” forced it upon him. He was compelled to resign. Other changes in the Cabinet are expected and talked of. Nothing new stirring, but news expected of great moment from the West and south. The day has passed with me as usual in the office. I have spent the evening at home keeping as comfortable as I could. Ed Dickerson has spent an hour or two here, a great talker and not uninteresting. He was from the Camp of the 35th Regt yesterday. Nothing new over the River, “all quiet & comfortable.”

______

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.

Jan. 14. This morning presents a scene of terror and wildest grandeur. The wrecked steamer has not broken up, but has settled down in the sand, the sea breaking over her, and her rigging is full of men. Boats that have been sent to her assistance are returning, having been unable to render any. We learn from the returning boats that she is the City of New York, loaded with stores. Another tug, with Gen. Burnside and a crew of picked men, has just gone to their assistance, and it is hoped will be able to take them off. The general is not one to see his men perish, and make no effort to rescue them. I reckon our friends at home, when they hear of the loss of this boat, will confound it with our own, and will experience the greatest anxiety until they get our letters, or get righted through the papers. The tug returned this afternoon, bringing off the officers and crew of the wrecked steamer, who report that she is breaking up, and will soon go to pieces.

 

At The Mercy of the Wind And Waves.

The wind is still blowing a gale. Many of our boats and vessels which have arrived are parting their cables and dragging their anchors, are being driven ashore, or sinking or fouling with each other. The saloon and upper works of our boat are stove in from gunboats and schooners fouling with us. One of our anchor cables has parted, and the engine is slowly working, helping the other one. Many of our vessels are still outside, and fears are entertained that some of them will be lost.

Capt. Clark says no boat can get in here today without the most skilful pilot, and then at great risk of being lost. The gunboat Zouave, with companies D and H of our regiment aboard, is in a sinking condition. Tugs are alongside of her, and the boys are scratching for their lives to get aboard of them. This is the kind of soldiering that makes the boys think of home and of their mothers. I cannot help laughing just a little when a boat or schooner fouls with us, and the timbers and planks begin to crack, to see the boys come out of their bunks, their eyes sticking out of their heads, and rush up stairs to see what the matter is. Well, it is not strange that these young boys should feel a little nervous, as it takes a man of pretty strong nerve to keep his fears down. We are here and have got to make the best of it. If we are to be lost, all our fears will avail us nothing; we must take things coolly, trusting in Providence, Mr. Mulligan and the good old steamer for safety.

Mother to Georgeanna and Eliza.

8 Brevoort Place, Tuesday Eve.

My Dear Girls: The question of my going on to Washington has been agitated for some time past, yet I do not seem to come to any decision about it; not but that I would dearly love to look upon your faces again, and enjoy ever so much being with you, and seeing for myself all your goings and doings. Independent of all this, however, I confess I have no desire to visit Washington, and unless I could make myself useful there, and in every way a comfort to you, I think I am more in my place at home. Your uncle Edward was here this morning, and threw cold water on the movement, said it would be madness to run any such risk, as Washington was full of small-pox and typhoid fever. Now I write this evening to ask you what you think of our going on at present; whether there is really so much sickness as to cause any alarm. Do you want us? will it be a comfort to you to have a little visit from me? I do not ask these questions because I have any fears myself, but I am not willing, after your uncle’s remarks this morning, to run any risk in Charley’s or Hatty’s going. I feel now that it will all rest upon what you say about it. . . . The report here this morning said twenty-five hundred cases of small-pox in Washington! This evening it has come down to eighty. . . . My eyes failing last night, I left my scrawl to finish to you this morning. We have had our breakfast, cold turkey (not boned), hot biscuits, and fish-balls, and the girls are gathered round the front parlor fire with the newspapers, reading items, and discussing the times; Charley is directing Elizabeth about his cushions for the chair he has carved and made, and I am scribbling this in the dining-room, feeling an occasional pang when I look up and see a horrid stranger, John by name, in the pantry, instead of the old faithful servant, William. You don’t know how much I miss him in a thousand little things. This fellow is a perfect snail, never gets through with anything, and of course half is not done at all;—an Irish drone and tobacco chewer.

Poor William’s occasional spree was really preferable. . . . I have nothing to say to begin another sheet with, but to send you my love and a Mother’s blessing. Give Joe his share in both.

Yours lovingly.

Small pox was more or less prevalent about Washington at this time, and one of the sad cases, entirely characteristic of war, was that of G. R., a private in the 19th Indiana, cared for earlier by G. and E. in the Patent Office Hospital. He went safely through camp fever, measles and rheumatism, to die at last of small-pox in a lonely camp hospital in the outskirts of Washington, among strangers.

JANUARY 14TH.—All calm and quiet to-day.

January 14.—In the United States Senate a communication was received from the President, transmitting a copy of the instructions received by the Austrian Minister from his government relative to the Trent affair, and the reply of Mr. Seward thereto.

—Governor Tod, of Ohio, was inaugurated at Columbus, and delivered his message. He expressed the fullest confidence in the President of the United States, and commended his conduct of the war for the Union.

—The Seventh regiment New-Hampshire Volunteers, numbering one thousand and twenty men, rank and file, under the command of Colonel H. S. Putnam, left Manchester for the seat of war. This regiment, composed of intelligent, hardy men, was recruited by Lieutenant-Colonel Abbott, under direct authority from the United States Government.

Previous to their departure, the citizens turned out en masse and tendered the soldiers a fitting ovation, the Eighth regiment escorting them to the cars, where an appropriate address was delivered by N. S. Berry, Governor of the State.

—D. W. C. Bonham, Colonel commanding the Twenty-third regiment of Mississippi troops, died at Camp Beauregard, Kentucky.

—The gunboats Essex, St. Louis, and Tyler made a reconnoissance down the Mississippi river to-day. They approached within a mile and a half of Columbus, Ky., and fired several shots into the rebel camps. The rebels returned the fire from three or four guns without doing any damage. No obstruction in the river nor masked batteries on shore were discovered.

—General McClernand’s column moved in the direction of Blandville, Ky., to-day.—General Paine’s force moved forward this morning from Bird’s Point, Mo.