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

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Written from the Sea islands of South Carolina.

Tuesday, April 8, 1862.
On Board The Oriental.

[Diary]

The stewardess is a character. She is a very light mulatto, — tall, thin, very talkative, and frank in the expression of her face. She says that passengers get frightened at very slight rolling and ask the officers of the boat whether there is danger, “and you can’t get them to give a straight answer to such questions — ‘t ain’t in the nature of them. They goes in for excitement, so they tells the ladies that it’s the worst time they ever knowed, don’t know whether the boat will live through the night or not, — and then the ladies is scared.”

I now find our own vessels are beginning to arrive, so that my alarms on that account (coal) are dispelled, and, so soon as the vessels can coal and get in their stores and munitions of war, we shall be ready to proceed up the river.

Yesterday was a day of rejoicing to me. We got the Pensacola over the bar, after two weeks’ work. Now we are all right. The ships are getting in the articles taken out to lighten them. The General spent last evening with me, and returned to Ship Island this morning. . . .

I am anxiously looking for the fall of Columbus, and something from Burnside. I see that Pennock was in the fight at Island No. Ten, and the Benton was severely handled. I hope the place will be ours before you read this—and a good many other places.

Tuesday 8th

This has been a most dismal day, rain or Sleet has been falling all the time. I am all the time thinking of the Thousands of Soldiers who are now out in the storm without tents or shelter. Such must be the condition of Genl McDowells Division, which has advanced into Virginia on their way to Richmond leaving their tents behind, and also those who are now besieging Yorktown. The news tonight is that Island No 10 and the Shore Batteries have been surrendered to our troops. We shall get particulars tomorrow, probably. Genl McClellan is having a desperate time of it at Yorktown. The Rebels under McGruder are, it is said, Thirty thousand strong, but they must capitulate or run and run they cannot very easily. We are expecting news of a great battle at or near Corinth every day betwen Halleck and Beauregard. Each have over a hundred thousand men. It will be the great Battle of the war I think. Nothing has been heard from the Merrimac as yet.

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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.

APRIL 8TH.—Col. Bledsoe has been appointed Assistant Secretary of War by the President. Now he is in his glory, and has forgotten me.

April 8th. Was signalized by the mortar fleet, twenty-two in number, arriving from Pilot Town, where they ha d gone to be stripped of their rigging. They looked very pretty as they ranged along the shore in line of battle, with their flagship, the Harriet Lane, at their head. We look for a great noise from them before long.

Camp Hayes, Raleigh, Virginia, April 8, 1862.

Dear Uncle : — We are getting ready to move south. Our first halt, unless the enemy stops us, will be at Princeton, forty-two miles from here, the county-seat of Mercer County. We shall stop there for supplies, etc., etc., and to suppress Rebel recruiting and guerrilla bands probably a fortnight, then on to the railroad at Wytheville, Dublin, or some other point. The enemy will try to stop us. They will do their best, as the railroad is of the utmost importance to their grand army in eastern Virginia.

Colonel Scammon has a brigade consisting of [the] Twenty-third, Thirtieth, and Thirty-seventh Ohio Regiments, a fine battery of eight pieces, and a small force of cavalry. I command the Twenty-third which has the advance. General Cox commands the division consisting of three brigades. At present only one brigade (ours) moves up this side of New River.

We should move tomorrow, but heavy rains yesterday and today have filled the streams so that they can’t be forded. I have got two companies cut off by the freshet, and have been taxing the Yankee ingenuity of a company from Ashtabula in getting grub to them. I think it has succeeded.

It is much pleasanter carrying on the war now than last campaign. Now the people, harried to death by the Rebel impressment of provisions and also of men, welcome our approach, receive us gladly, send us messages to hurry us forward, and a few turn out to fight. Guides are plenty, information furnished constantly, etc. All which is very different from carrying on an invasion of a hostile people.

I can’t think that the new armies of the South will fight as well as the old ones. Besides being raw, large numbers are unwilling. Our troops have improved beyond all expectation. Our regiment is now a beautiful sight. The Thirtieth too has become, under the drilling of the last two months, a capital body in appearance. The Thirty-seventh is a German regiment — has companies from Toledo, Sandusky, and Cleveland. I have not yet seen it.

I prefer Lucy should let the house remain empty this summer, or rented to some [family] to take care of it with my name on the door, etc., and in the fall we will see as to permanent arrangements.

The war will certainly last another campaign — I mean through this summer and until next fall. Even with victories on the Potomac and at Corinth and Memphis, it will take months, if not a year or two, to crush out the Rebellion in all quarters.

Sincerely,

R. B. Hayes.

S. Birchard.

Tuesday, 8. — A. M. Still raining! Have borrowed “Jack Hinton” to read to pass time. Rained all day. At night heard a noise; found the sutler was selling whiskey; ordered two hundred bottles poured out.

8th. —There is almost a mutiny this morning. No rations, and unless there should be better things before night, I shall not be surprised at any violence. Before leaving Newport News I laid in a supply for myself and servant for two weeks, but for two days I have been dividing with my hospital attendants, and my supply is about exhausted. When I awoke this morning, my fire was surrounded by men and officers clamoring for something to eat. They had some how got it into their heads that the hospital should be able to remove all the ills that flesh is heir to. I cooked what I had, and distributed till all was gone. Although hungry, I think I feel better to-night, than if I had permitted my mess chest to have remained locked by the key of selfishness. At night—a few boxes of hard bread have partially calmed the angry storm which has been rising. But two or three hard crackers to a man who has not had a meal for three days, is but small satisfaction. We are promised, however, beef, pork, bread, sugar and coffee in the morning, and how many hungry men are hopefully looking for the morning, that the cravings of exhausted nature may be gratified. The rain still pours, and if it continues another day the roads will be impassable for teams, and we shall be compelled to fall back to some point where we can be provisioned by water. We are within four miles of two of the finest navigable rivers in the world. The mouths of both of them are held by us, and that of neither is twenty miles away; and here we are, almost starving for want of transportation. This all seems to me an indication of an unaccountable oversight somewhere—” shiftless!” If we had, before coming here, on our way, conquered twelve miles of one of these rivers, we should have had good water transportation for all our rations. But holding the mouths, we have advanced, satisfied to permit the enemy to hold the rest. What a climate for mud and rain; and what a country and people for poverty and indolence. Though we are almost in sight of the historical cities of Yorktown and Jamestown, the country is not half so far advanced in improvements and culture as the new State of Wisconsin, or even the still newer and wilder Minnesota. What a curse is slavery! I do not like the brigadeship. It places too great a distance between the sick and the Surgeon.

April 8.—Arrived at Okolona, Miss., this morning. We are still sixty miles from Corinth. When we alighted at the depot, we were told that there were no hotels to go to. As it had been raining for some time very hard, all about us looked as cheerless as possible. Our prospects, as may be supposed, were gloomy enough. While in this perplexity, each one giving an opinion as to what we had best do, word was brought us that the citizens of the place, hearing of our arrival and mission, had opened their houses for our reception, and many sent carriages to take us to their homes.

As the good people of Mobile have provided us with comforts and delicacies of all kinds for the soldiers, our failure to reach Corinth is a sad disappointment. The stories which we hear of the suffering and almost starving condition of our men aggravate it still more.

The people here can tell us little or nothing about the battle, except that one has been fought. How our forces have come out of it, they have not learned.

Several of our party, myself included, are domiciled with an excellent family by the name of Haughton, consisting of an old lady, her young daughter Lucy, and two pretty girls, her granddaughters. They are extending to us true southern hospitality.

We were all exhausted by loss of sleep, disappointment, and anxiety, and hence did not go to the cars when they passed at 11 A. M. Mrs. H’s two granddaughters went down, and, upon their return, informed us that the cars were filled with the wounded on their way to Mobile and other points. Among other items, there is a report that Captain Ketchum is killed, and all his men are either killed or captured; that the Twenty-first Alabama Regiment has been cut to pieces. I was never more wretched in my life! I can see nothing before me but my slaughtered brother, and the bleeding and mangled forms of his dying comrades, and the men of the gallant Twenty-first Alabama, whom I had seen leave Mobile but a few weeks ago so full of life and hope—many of whom were mere boys. The battle was fought at Shiloh, about twelve miles from Corinth. We had gained a victory, but at a great sacrifice. I tried to comfort myself and trust in God, assured that he was doing all for the best. O, if they would only let us go on! I feel certain that we could help the poor wounded sufferers.

It is raining in torrents. Nature seems to have donned her most somber garb, and to be weeping in anguish for the loss of so many of her noblest sons.

About midnight a train came down. I jumped up, and awoke Miss Mary Wolf. Hurriedly dressing ourselves, we took a servant and started down to see if we could hear any thing. I felt confident we should meet other ladies there as anxious as ourselves. I was not mistaken, for we had not gone far when we met a number returning from the train. It was a car sent down to get negroes to build fortifications.

Tuesday, 8th—We formed a line of battle early this morning and remained in line about two hours.[1] So many men throughout the camp were firing off their loaded rifles, preparing to clean them, that the officers thought a battle was in progress out in front. About 9 o’clock word came in from the front that there was no rebel in sight, and we were ordered back to our quarters. We spent the day in burying the dead, both our own and those of the rebels.

Our battle line had been at the south end of Jones’ Field, where a few days before we had cleared the timber for a review ground. This place was fought over so often by both armies and the dead lay so close that one could walk on dead bodies for some distance without touching the ground. There were over three thousand five hundred dead on the battlefield, and something like five hundred dead horses. Seven hundred bodies of the rebels were put into one grave. It is an awful sight to see the dead lying all about. It rained this forenoon, but cleared off this afternoon. The heavy rains have soaked the ground, making it very muddy. About five thousand of our forces arrived today.


[1] It has been said by some that from General Grant down to the commonest private in the ranks of the entire Army of the Tennessee, all the men cared for on Monday afternoon, the second day of the battle of Shiloh, was to get back to their camps. I cannot believe the statement, for on Tuesday, the 8th, when we were ordered into line of battle, on that gloomy, rainy morning, and a cold wind blowing from the northwest, I know by the sentiment of the boys in my own company, that they would have gone to the front then if ordered to do so. We felt that the loss in our company was too great not to follow up the victory.—A. G. D.