Saturday 15th
The City is quite wild with Excitement today at the reported capture of Fort Donoldson with 15000 prisoners. It is not yet confirmed. We all hope & rejoice. Good news also from Genl Lander, he has made an important capture of rebel officers & Stores near Winchester V.A.
Capt White of the 27th came over from Camp today and gave us a call, he returned this evening. Union Stock has raised astonishingly within three or four days past. We have been sometime getting ready to fight and now the “ball” is open. No obstruction now but Bad roads. Spent the evening at home, it has snowed all day.
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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, February 15. — Snowy to-day. General Butterfield gave a dinner-party to all the generals in the division and to the French and Russian Ministers, etc. I had a short visit this afternoon from Tom Sherwin and Cousins. I received a pleasant note from Bill Perkins. I read up on skirmishing this morning.
Saturday, 15th—We received a very large mail from home today. The papers say that General Grant has taken Fort Henry, on the Tennessee river.
15th. Squared up with Farmer and Thayer. First Battalion of our regiment moved for Fort Leavenworth at ten A. M. Roads very slippery. Passed through Leavenworth City after crossing on the ice.
15th.—What a week of news, opening on us with intelligence of the capture of Fort Henry, with its list of high-bred prisoners. Scarcely had the sound of the cheers and the hurrahs died away, when Burnside startled us with an artillery discharge of news. To-day, whilst we were brushing out our “hollering organs” with alum swabs, when the startling intelligence from Fort Donelson, the most glorious of which is the capture of the arch-traitor, Floyd; and what a disappointment that not a throat in our whole Division can shout “Hang him!” loud enough for Floyd to hear it. Hold on for awhile; send us no more such news at present. As this poor old “grand-mother” of armies is to do no fighting, wait at least till the throats of our soldiers so far recover that they can do the shouting over victories in which they are denied the privilege of participating. We have lain still here till we have grown into old fogyism—gone to seed. So little advance, so little progress have we made, within the memory of any here, that should Methuselah offer us to-day a shake of his hand, we should wonder whether it was yesterday or a week ago that we parted from him, so little has been the change here since his advent, and so much would he look like all around him.
Feb. 15, 1862. (Village of X.)—We reached Arkansas Landing at nightfall. Mr. Y., the planter who owns the landing, took us right up to his residence. He ushered me into a large room where a couple of candles gave a dim light, and close to them, and sewing as if on a race with time, sat Mrs. Y. and a little negro girl, who was so black and sat so stiff and straight she looked like an ebony image. This was a large plantation; the Y.’s knew H. very well, and were very kind and cordial in their welcome and congratulations. Mrs. Y. apologized for continuing her work; the war had pushed them this year in getting the negroes clothed, and she had to sew by dim candles, as they could obtain no more oil. She asked if there were any new fashions in New Orleans.
Next morning we drove over to our home in this village. It is the county-seat, and was, till now, a good place for the practice of H.’s profession. It lies on the edge of a lovely lake. The adjacent planters count their slaves by the hundreds. Some of them live with a good deal of magnificence, using service of plate, having smoking-rooms for the gentlemen built off the house, and entertaining with great hospitality. The Baptists, Episcopalians, and Methodists hold services on alternate Sundays in the court-house. All the planters and many others, near the lake shore, keep a boat at their landing, and a raft for crossing vehicles and horses. It seemed very piquant at first, this taking our boat to go visiting, and on moonlight nights it was charming. The woods around are lovelier than those in Louisiana, though one misses the moaning of the pines. There is fine fishing and hunting, but these cotton estates are not so pleasant to visit as sugar plantations.
But nothing else has been so delightful as, one morning, my first sight of snow and a wonderful, new, white world.
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Note: To protect Mrs. Miller’s job as a teacher in New Orleans, the diary was published anonymously, edited by G. W. Cable, names were changed and initials were often used instead of full names — and even the initials differed from the real person’s initials.
February 15.—The National batteries at Venus Point, on the Savannah River, were attacked at three o’clock this afternoon, by four rebel gunboats, with a view of effecting a passage from Fort Pulaski for the rebel steamers then at that place. After an engagement of one hour the rebels were driven off; the flag-officer’s boat being disabled and taken in tow and the steamer that attempted the passage of the river returning to Fort Pulaski. The guns were manned by the Third Rhode Island detachment, under Capt. Gould, and effectively worked. There was no loss on the National side.—Brig-Gen. Viele’s Report.
—The Ninth battery of Rhode Island Artillery, under the command of Lieut. Wightman, passed through New-York, en route for Port Royal, S. C.—N. Y. Times, February 16.
—The President, through the Secretaries of War and the Navy, returned thanks to Brig.-Gen. Burnside and Flag-Officer Goldsborough, and to Brig.-Gen. Grant and Flag-Officer Foote, and the land and naval forces under their respective commands, for their gallant achievements in the capture of Fort Henry and at Roanoke Island.
—Bowling Green, Ky., was evacuated this morning by the rebels, and occupied by the National army under command of Brig.-Gen. D. C. Buell. The National troops reached Big Barren River, opposite the city, about two o’clock this afternoon, having accomplished a difficult march of forty miles in twenty-eight hours and a half. They found the bridge across the river destroyed. Col. Turchin’s brigade crossed on a flat-boat, the artillery, under command of Captain Loomis firing shell across the river, which caused a hasty evacuation by the rebels.—(Doc. 45.)
