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

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Princeton, May 6, 1862. Tuesday evening. — A clear, cold, bright day. Got a letter from my dear wife, very patriotic, very affectionate. An angel of a wife, I have. And the boys, dear little fellows! I hope we shall be together again before many months.

I have been rather anxious today. We heard from contrabands and others that the Narrows [of New River] was deserted except by a small guard for property and tents. Major Comly with Companies H, I, and K and Captain Gilmore’s Cavalry was dispatched to the point eighteen to twenty-two miles distant. No tidings yet, although a courier ought to have reached here before this time if they and he travelled rapidly. I suggested that if necessary to secure property they go to Giles Town.

In the meantime I hear that a foraging party of six of our men as guards under Corporal Day, with three battery men and a waggon, have been taken by a large party of cavalry on the Tazewell Road, ten miles. Jenifer’s Cavalry have gone to Tazewell; got their horses and are now in the saddle ready to cut off our men. Oh, for an enterprising cavalry force!

I have looked for a messenger since 5 o’clock from Major Comly. At midnight received a message from Major Comly that the party finding the Narrows deserted and all property gone, had gone on to Giles and taken it completely by surprise, capturing some prisoners and a large amount of stores, — two hundred and fifty barrels of flour and everything else. Very lucky! and Colonel Scammon thereupon approved of the whole expedition, although it was irregular and in violation of the letter of orders. The enemy just out of Giles were at least eleven hundred and had forces near to increase it to fifteen hundred. Our party was only two hundred and fifty! The colonel fearing the capture of our little party ordered me to proceed at daylight with two companies Second Virginia Cavalry and the rest of [the] Twenty-third Regiment to reinforce Giles.

May 6—This morning we renewed our march through a beautiful country. We struck the Valley pike one mile below Mount Sidney, then marched down the pike to North River, and camped on the south side of the river.

This camp is a half mile south of Mount Crawford, eight miles from Harrisonburg. I have not heard or seen anything of Jackson’s army since we left Conrad’s Store.

Tuesday, 6th—We had battalion drill this afternoon. News came that Yorktown has been taken. New troops are still arriving and our lines are being extended to the right and left. A second line is supporting the artillery in the front line and the second line’s flanks are supported by the cavalry.

May 6th. Issued five days’ rations, sugar and coffee. Started on the march southwest at one o’clock. Companies “L”, “M”, “G”, “D” and “A” under Major Purington, and two Dutch companies under Lt. Col. Orff. Marched eighteen miles to Redding Mills. Secesh galvanized. Found plenty of corn and sheaf oats. Occupied a house deserted a few minutes before. A store near by. Nothing of importance left. News of rebels within twelve miles.

6th.—It is ascertained to-day that although we were entirely successful yesterday in driving the enemy from the field, and from his entrenchments, we did it at great cost. The aggregate loss to both armies cannot be less than 15,000 in killed and wounded. As far as we can now judge, this loss is about equally divided. Reports are rife to-day that Gen. Mugruder has surrendered with 12,000 men. At this report their is great rejoicing in camp, but it is not authenticated.[1]

I have spent this day at hard work amongst the wounded, not only of my own regiment, but of the army generally. Am very much now out to-night,[2] f Was visited to-day by Medical Director Tripler, with whom, after inspecting my own hospital, I went to General Hospital, at Whittaker’s.


[1] Since writing the above, I have heard it stated that Major Larrabee was not at his post during the fight. It is due to Major Larrabee to state emphatically that he was not only in the fight, but actively engaged wherever there were symptoms of wavering, and where duty called him.

[2] Early in the fight the gallant Captain Bugh, of Co. K, 5th Wisconsin, fell, badly wounded by a musket ball through the upper end of the thigh, shattering the bone badly. A braver or a better man never went to battle.

May 6th. Glorious morning, roads hard again, and every vestige of Virginia mud has disappeared. Reveille at daylight, and after breakfast tents were struck, and the march back to Yorktown commenced. The country between Williamsburg and Yorktown is picturesque and interesting. There are many quaint and curious old colonial houses, dating back to revolutionary times, mostly deserted, and all in a dilapitated condition. In fact, wherever we have been so far, the general appearance of things is in sad contrast to those at home. Virginia, or what we have seen of it, seems to be a hundred years behind the age, poor, badly cultivated, and thinly populated. Arrived at Yorktown at four P.M. and bivouacked in close column of division near to the shore. As soon as the tents were pitched and guards established, leave was given to all off duty to go in swimming. Of course, every one went and enjoyed themselves immensely, it being the first swim the men have had since their enlistment. The shore is formed of beautiful white sand and shelves out so gradually that one can walk out for three or four hundred yards without getting into deep water. It was a lively scene, as we saw it from the high bank, nearly ten thousand men, splashing and swimming in the sea at one time. After dinner, when the men were all in camp, we made up a party of officers and enjoyed a swim ourselves.

May 6.—Mr. Jones is dead; he was eighteen years of age. He died the death of a Christian; was a brave soldier; true to his God and country. Miss H. sat up all night with him. She is endeavoring to procure a coffin for him. We have none now in which to bury the dead, as the Federals have destroyed the factory at which they were made. At one time, I thought that it was dreadful to have the dead buried without them; but there is so much suffering among the living, that I pay little heed to those things now. It matters little what becomes of the clay after the spirit has left it. Men who die as ours do, need “no useless coffin” to enshrine them.

“There honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay.”

Philip Kearny at Battle of Williamsburg

Title inscribed on lower right: Kearney [sic] at Battle of Williamsburg

May 1862 – drawn by Alfred R. Waud.

Part of Morgan collection of Civil War drawings.  Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

Record page for this image: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2004660331/

May 6th.—Mine is a painful, self-imposed task: but why write when I have nothing to chronicle but disaster ?¹ So I read instead: First, Consuelo, then Columba, two ends of the pole certainly, and then a translated edition of Elective Affinities. Food enough for thought in every one of this odd assortment of books.

At the Prestons’, where I am staying (because Mr. Chesnut has gone to see his crabbed old father, whom he loves, and who is reported ill), I met Christopher Hampton. He tells us Wigfall is out on a warpath; wants them to strike for Maryland. The President’s opinion of the move is not given. Also Mr. Hampton met the first lieutenant of the Kirkwoods, E. M. Boykin. Says he is just the same man he was in the South Carolina College. In whatever company you may meet him, he is the pleasantest man there.

A telegram reads: “We have repulsed the enemy at Williamsburg.”² Oh, if we could drive them back “to their ain countree!” Richmond was hard pressed this day. The Mercury of to-day says, “Jeff Davis now treats all men as if they were idiotic insects.”

Mary Preston said all sisters quarreled. No, we never quarrel, I and mine. We keep all our bitter words for our enemies. We are frank heathens; we hate our enemies and love our friends. Some people (our kind) can never make up after a quarrel; hard words once only and all is over. To us forgiveness is impossible. Forgiveness means calm indifference; philosophy, while love lasts. Forgiveness of love’s wrongs is impossible. Those dutiful wives who piously overlook—well, everything—do not care one fig for their husbands. I settled that in my own mind years ago. Some people think it magnanimous to praise their enemies and to show their impartiality and justice by acknowledging the faults of their friends. I am for the simple rule, the good old plan. I praise whom I love and abuse whom I hate.

Mary Preston has been translating Schiller aloud. We are provided with Bulwer’s translation, Mrs. Austin’s, Coleridge’s, and Carlyle’s, and we show how each renders the passage Mary is to convert into English. In Wallenstein at one point of the Max and Thekla scene, I like Carlyle better than Coleridge, though they say Coleridge’s Wallenstein is the only translation in the world half so good as the original. Mrs. Barstow repeated some beautiful scraps by Uhland, which I had never heard before. She is to write them for us. Peace, and a literary leisure for my old age, unbroken by care and anxiety!

General Preston accused me of degenerating into a boarding-house gossip, and is answered triumphantly by his daughters: “But, papa, one you love to gossip with full well.”

Hampton estate has fifteen hundred negroes on Lake Washington, Mississippi. Hampton girls talking in the language of James’s novels:  “Neither Wade nor Preston —that splendid boy!—would lay a lance in rest—or couch it, which is the right phrase for fighting, to preserve slavery. They hate it as we do.” “What are they fighting for?” “Southern rights—whatever that is. And they do not want to be understrappers forever to the Yankees. They talk well enough about it, but I forget what they say.” Johnny Chesnut says: “No use to give a reason— a fellow could not stay away from the fight—not well.” It takes four negroes to wait on Johnny satisfactorily.

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It is this giving up that kills me. Norfolk they talk of now; why not Charleston next ? I read in a Western letter, “Not Beauregard, but the soldiers who stopped to drink the whisky they had captured from the enemy, lost us Shiloh.” Cock Robin is as dead as he ever will be now; what matters it who killed him?

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¹ The Siege of Yorktown was begun on April 5, 1862, the place being evacuated by the Confederates on May 4th.

² The battle of Williamsburg was fought on May 5,1862, by a part of McClellan’s army, under General Hooker and others, the Confederates being commanded by General Johnston.

May 6.—The rebels having evacuated the works in front of Williamsburgh, and continued their retreat toward Richmond, the place was occupied by the Union forces under the immediate command of Gen. McClellan.—(Doc. 96.)

—General Franklin’s division of the Army of the Potomac left Yorktown in transports, to proceed up the York River to West-Point.—N. Y. Evening Post, May 8.

—At Cincinnati, Ohio, in the United States Circuit Court, at the April term, 1861, the Grand Jury found an indictment of treason against James W. Chenoweth, for furnishing supplies and munitions of war to the rebels. At the present term ex-Senator Pugh, counsel for the defendant, moved to quash the indictment on the ground that the first clause of section two, article three, of the Constitution, which provides that treason shall consist only of levying war refers to rebellion, while the second clause, “or adhering to their enemies in giving aid and comfort,” relates only to a public war with a foreign enemy. Justice Swayne gave his decision to-day, sustaining the motion by quashing the indictment— Cincinnati Enquirer, May 8.

—This afternoon a detachment of the Fifth New-York cavalry made a reconnoissance from New-Market towards Harrisonburgh, Va., and when about five miles from the town they encountered upwards of two hundred of Ashby’s cavalry. They charged on the rebels and pursued them within two miles of the town, killing ten and taking six prisoners. The National loss was one killed and the battalion adjutant taken prisoner.—Baltimore American, May 8.

—J. P. Benjamin, the rebel Secretary of State, in answer to an inquiry by a Southern firm, whether cotton purchased on foreign account would be treated as exempted from the general law which declares that all cotton shall be destroyed when it is about to fall into the hands of the enemy, says:

“I know no law which prohibits the purchase of cotton on foreign account, but I am not aware of any law or reason of policy which should induce this government to extend to property thus purchased greater protection than is extended to that of our own citizens. It is the settled determination of the government to allow no cotton to fall into the hands of our enemies, as it is perfectly well known that they would seize and appropriate to themselves all cotton they could find, without regard to ownership. If your correspondents buy cotton they must expect to share the same risks as are incurred by our own citizens.”—Richmond Dispatch, May 7.

—The rebel schooner C. C. Pinckney, from Charleston, S. C, for Nassau, N. P., was captured by the United States gunboat Ottawa.