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

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Written from the Sea islands of South Carolina.

May 1. 1862.

[Diary]

The little boys in the carts whip and goad, no matter how I remonstrate and order, they laughing and jeering in my face at my commands. Yesterday I saw that an ox was all in welts and the skin in places quite off. Just this minute Joe has gone out of the gate lashing a poor horse furiously at first start, and for no cause whatever. . . .

Our young men say they have to decide suddenly upon such weighty questions that they are kept anxious and overworked. They have learned to settle questions in an offhand way. Mr. Pierce, in talking with the negroes, has to alter many a half-considered thing. It is very picturesque to see him in a negro village with such unclad and oddly clad groups around him, talking, reasoning, and getting such shrewd answers too. When he sees a sulky woman he calls upon the ladies for help, and Miss Winsor or I step out and at his command get a smile on the face before we leave it. One and another woman will come up with a few eggs or a plate of berries, and stand with all the children and half-starved dogs around the carriage.

Mr. Philbrick says that, after telling each man that he should be paid exactly according to the quantity of cotton he put in, they all went to work with a will, and each man did his task per day, but that two women each did two tasks a day and were to be paid accordingly. A task is a quarter acre of hoeing or planting. These two women received, besides, a head-handkerchief as a reward.

There was a man at Captain John Tripp’s who had been a coachman in the family. He said his master was kind, and then he went on to say that the masters had “been unjust to we.” “They take all our labor for their own use and get rich on it and then say we are lazy and can’t take care of ourselves. That’s not just, and they were not just to we, taking all our labor and giving us only two suits of clothes a year for wagers.” He was a shrewd old man in other ways too, and told me, with a very demure look, of how Massa John Tripp married a poor woman, who came home and was as much of a lady as anybody — could n’t get a glass of water for herself, nor nothing.

May 1 — Rained hard all last night; we renewed our march this morning up the river over a very muddy and almost impassable road. In fact, at some places we had to go through the fields and meadows in consequence of the wretched condition of the road. We marched about nine miles to-day, and are camped this evening on the Shenandoah five miles below Port Republic.

Camp 5, Princeton, May 1, 1862. Thursday. — Marched at 6 A. M. Heard firing in advance. Turned out to be Company C on Camp Creek, attacked by Lieutenant-Colonel Fitzhugh with four companies, dismounted, Jenkins’ Cavalry and Foley’s bushwhackers. The company was in line ready to move off to return to camp when they saw a party of bushwhackers coming down the road who called out (Captain Foley called): “Don’t fire; we are Richmond’s men.” Immediately after, a volley was fired into our men from all sides. They were surrounded by three hundred Secesh. Finding the attack so heavy, Company C was ordered by Lieutenant Bottsford to take shelter in the log house where they had quartered. They kept up such a spirited fire that the enemy retreated, leaving four dead, four mortally [wounded], four more dangerously. All these we got. Captain Foley had his shoulder broken. The enemy fled in confusion leaving their dead and wounded on the field. This was a splendid victory for Lieutenant Bottsford and Sergeant Ritter, of Company C, and Sergeant Abbott, Company I. They were the prominent officers. Our loss was a German, Pfeffer, killed; Lenox and another mortally wounded, three severely wounded, and fifteen others slightly. Sergeant Ritter had a bullet shot into his head lodging between the scalp and skull. He fell, but instantly jumped up saying, “You must shoot lower if you want to kill me.” It was a gallant fight. Company C wears the honors.

I came up to the scene of the conflict soon after the enemy fled. They say our coming drove them away. I couldn’t speak when I came up to the gallant little company and they presented arms to me. I went around shaking hands with the wounded. They all spoke cheerfully. We immediately pushed on in mud and rain after the retreating foe. Captain McIlrath’s company (A) [led]. At a house where three cavalrymen were leaving two of the enemy’s wounded, they killed one and captured his horse and shotgun, etc. I then sent the cavalry under Lieutenant-Colonel Paxton in advance. They soon were fired on by a gang of bushwhackers from a hill and their horses badly stampeded. One horse threw his forelegs over Colonel Paxton’s horse’s neck. The cavalry dismounted, charged up the hill, and caught one dragoon.

Finding the cavalry would dismount and skirmish all the bad hillsides (and they were abundant — being twelve miles of defiles), I again put the Twenty-third in advance. At Ferguson’s we saw Captain Ward, quartermaster Rebel army, badly wounded and another young soldier.

We pushed on rapidly, crossing Wolf Creek, Camp Creek, and wading Bluestone waist-deep — rain falling, mud deep and slippery. We came in sight of the wagons of the retreating foe, but for want of cavalry familiarized to the business, we were unable to overtake them. We were told of great reinforcements at Princeton or soon to be at Princeton. The Forty-fifth [Virginia] there or coming. Captain Ward, a pleasant gentleman, said we would probably “get thunder at Princeton.” We kept ahead. On approaching town we saw great clouds. Some thought it smoke, some supposed it was clouds. Within two miles we knew the Rebels were burning the town. We hurried forward; soon reached an elevated ground overlooking the place. All the brick buildings, court-house, churches, etc., were burning. I ordered up the howitzers to scatter out the few Rebel cavalry who were doing it; deployed the regiment by a file right into a field and marched forward by battalion front. The town was soon overrun. Some fires were put out; four or five tolerably fine dwellings were saved; a number of small buildings and some good stables were also saved.

And so ended the first of May — twenty-two miles in mud and rain. An exciting day. Five enemy killed, nine badly wounded that we got; three unwounded prisoners, and about a dozen Rebels wounded. Total five killed, three prisoners, twenty-one wounded. A good day’s work.

Headquarters Porter’s Division, 3d Army Corps,
Camp Winfield Scott, May 1, 1862.

Dear Hannah, — . . . We are still in statu quo and shall probably remain so until the middle of next week. I begin to see into the cause of our delay, or rather the cause of our waiting to storm Yorktown. McClellan has not enough men, since McDowell is taken away from him. If he and his corps had been here, the works at Yorktown would have been stormed immediately on our arrival. As it is, every man is considered of great account, and as the battle will come off at Williamsburg, McClellan cannot spare the loss of so many men, which would necessarily ensue from storming the works here, and so weaken his force before the time came for the attack at Williamsburg. Yorktown once in our possession, the York River is ours, and with it, more suitable landing-places for goods, etc. Even should the enemy leave Yorktown without a battle, which I think is barely possible, the gain will be on our side, notwithstanding the immense time and labor spent on our works. You see how much harm has been done by some one, in detaching McDowell. It has caused a delay of some weeks, and all for the purpose of injuring McClellan by McDowell’s gain. I believe our generals do not expect the enemy to make a very decided stand at Yorktown against our batteries. Yesterday our battery (No. 1) of hundred-pounders opened on the enemy and kept up quite a lively little duel with them, although with somewhat larger weapons than are commonly used in such fashionable pastimes. No injury was done us, and we learned this morning from a deserter that one of our shells burst and killed 2 and wounded 11 of the rebels. We heaved a good many of these small tokens into their works, and I have no doubt that many more must have been killed. When any of these shells do not take the groove of a gun, they make a noise like an engine going at full speed. One of their shells burst, and we found that the shell was of English manufacture, and probably thrown from a 100-pound Armstrong gun.

I frequently go to mortar battery No. 4. This is situated on Wormsley Creek, and is on made land, a notch having been dug right in the side of the steep bank, and the dirt thrown into the water. In the notch they are mounting ten 13-inch mortars, each one weighing 17,180 pounds. It took 48 horses to haul one along the road the other day.

General McClellan spoke in terms of highest praise of General P.’s division and did not mean that sentence in the way you took it. General McC. resembles his photographs in the features, but his moustache is a light brown, and his complexion sandy, or rather colorless. . . .

MAY 1ST.—The ladies shower loaves of bread and slices of ham on the passing troops.

Thursday, 1st—We received marching orders, and striking our tents moved four miles further toward Corinth. All of the Sixth Division moved forward today. We went to work and cleaned up our camp in a heavy piece of timber. This is camp number 3.

May 1st. To-day General Butler’s troops arrived to the number of some three thousand, in various craft: first came the Mississippi, a large screw steamer, literally so thronged with soldiers that they were hanging to the jibboom and almost every other conceivable part of the ship; after her the Miami; then a large ship and the river steamer Diana, all well filled with soldiers, and as they passed our ships cheer upon cheer rent the air, while a band discoursed music to us.

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I was right in that prophecy. For this was not the Will Pinckney I saw last. So woebegone! so subdued, careworn, and sad! No trace of his once merry self. He is good-looking, which he never was before. But I would rather never have seen him than have found him so changed. I was talking to a ghost. His was a sad story. He had held one bank of the river until forced to retreat with his men, as their cartridges were exhausted, and General Lovell omitted sending more. They had to pass through swamps, wading seven and a half miles, up to their waists in water. He gained the edge of the swamp, saw they were over the worst, and fell senseless. Two of his men brought him milk, and “woke him up,” he said. His men fell from exhaustion, were lost, and died in the swamp; so that out of five hundred, but one hundred escaped. This he told quietly and sadly, looking so heartbroken that it was piteous to see such pain. He showed me his feet, with thick clumsy shoes which an old negro had pulled off to give him; for his were lost in the swamp, and he came out bare-footed. They reached the Lafourche River, I believe, seized a boat, and arrived here last night. His wife and child were aboard. Heaven knows how they got there! The men he sent on to Port Hudson, while he stopped here. I wanted to bring his wife to stay with us; but he said she could not bear to be seen, as she had run off just as she had happened to be at that moment. In half an hour he would be off to take her to his old home in a carriage. There he would rejoin his men, on the railroad, and march from Clinton to the Jackson road, and so on to Corinth. A long journey for men so disheartened! But they will conquer in the end. Beauregard’s army will increase rapidly at this rate. The whole country is aroused, and every man who owns a gun, and many who do not, are on the road to Corinth. We will conquer yet.

1st. Wrote to Sarah Felton. Nothing of interest occurred.

May 1st.—Awoke this morning, feeling very badly— sick. How I wish I could now be nursed a little by my family. Heard yesterday of the capture of New Orleans. This ought to have made me well, but it has not. Attended to a little business in the afternoon, but was very feeble. Hope to be able to work to-morrow. My wounded men are taken from my immediate control, and placed in what is called a brigade hospital. This is an outrage, and if we were not in expectation of a fight, I should resign at once. If it were found necessary to send the wounded away from the field to a general hospital, we would not complain. But they are simply transferred from one tent, under charge of their own Surgeon, sent here by the State to look after them, to another tent alongside, under charge of some other Surgeon, whom they know nothing about. It is an outrage on the men, simply to raise the importance of “red tape.”