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

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Post image for Diary and Letters of Rutherford B. Hayes.

Diary and Letters of Rutherford B. Hayes.

May 23, 2012

Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes

Flat Top Mountain, May 23, 1862. Friday. — Warm and dry; getting dusty!! Mr. French lies here wounded — his thigh bone shattered by a ball that passed clear through his leg. Dr. McCurdy thinks he will not survive more than three or four weeks. . . . Our regiment elected him chaplain a week or two ago to date from the day of battle, May 1, 1862. I hope the Governor will commission [him] promptly. . . .

The Commercial is reported as saying that people may “act as if they had heard some very good news” from General Halleck’s army.

It is dusty!! A cold wind blowing. The plan of going to Packs Ferry and crossing New River, uniting with Colonel Crook, and thence through Union to Christiansburg, is not yet fixed upon.

Post image for Letters and diary of Laura M. Towne

Letters and diary of Laura M. Towne

May 23, 2012

Letters and diary of Laura M. Towne

Written from the Sea islands of South Carolina.

[Diary] May 23.

Ellen is coming at last. I felt sure no one could stop her. Mr. McKim is also to come as Philadelphia agent, and I am free.

We have been for three days going to various plantations, once to Mr. Zacha’s at Paris Island, once to Mrs. Mary Jenkins’, Mr. Wells’ and to Edgar Fripp’s, or to Frogmore, Mr. Saulis’; also to Edding’s Point and one other place. At the three places of Mr. Jenkins, Mr. Fripp, and Edding, the wretched hovels with their wooden chimneys and the general squalor showed the former misery. One woman said the differences in the times were as great as if God had sent another Moses and a great deliverance — that it was heaven upon earth and earth in heaven now. They all seemed to love Mr. Wells. We saw there one woman whose two children had been whipped to death, and Mr. Wells said there was not one who was not marked up with welts. He had the old whip which had a ball at the end, and he had seen the healed marks of this ball on their flesh — the square welts showed where it had taken the flesh clean out. Loretta of this place showed me her back and arms to-day. In many places there were ridges as high and long as my little finger, and she said she had had four babies killed within her by whipping, one of which had its eye cut out, another its arm broken, and the others with marks of the lash. She says it was because even while “heaviest” she was required to do as much as usual for a field hand, and not being able, and being also rather apt to resist, and rather smart in speaking her mind, poor thing, she has suffered; and no wonder Grace, her child, is of the lowest type; no wonder she is more indifferent about her clothes and house than any one here. She says this was the cruelest place she was ever in.

The happiest family I know here is old Aunt Bess’s Minda and Jerry and herself. They are always joking and jolly but very gentle. When I go there at night to dress Bess’s foot I find her lying upon her heap of rags with the roaches running all over her and little Leah or some small child asleep beside her.’ Jerry got me some of the pine sticks they use for candles. They hold one for me while I dress the foot.

It is very interesting to observe how the negroes watch us for fear we shall go away. They are in constant dread of it and we cannot be absent a single day without anxiety on their part. It is very touching to hear their entreaties to us to stay, and their anxious questions. They have a horrible dread of their masters’ return, especially here where Massa Dan’l’s name is a terror.

They appreciate the cheapness of our goods and especially of the sugar at the Overseer house, and are beginning to distrust the cotton agents who have charged them so wickedly.

The scenes in the cotton-house used to be very funny. Miss W. would say to some discontented purchaser who was demurring at the price of some article, “Well, now, I don’t want to sell this. I believe I won’t sell it to-day. But if you want to take it very much at a dollar and a half, you may have it. Oh, you don’t? Well, then, I can’t sell you anything. No, you can’t have anything. We are doing the best we can for you and you are not satisfied; you won’t be contented. Just go — go now, please. We want all the room and air we can get. You don’t want to buy and why do you stay? No, I shall not let you have anything but that. I don’t want to sell it, but you may have it for a dollar and a half,” etc., etc. This is one of many real scenes. The people are eager, crazy to buy, for they are afraid of their money, it being paper, and besides, they need clothes and see finer things than ever in their lives before. Except when they are excited they are very polite, always saying “Missus” to us, and “Sir” to one another. The children say, “Good-mornin’, ma’am,” whenever they see us first in the day, and once I overheard two girls talking just after they had greeted me. One said, “I say good-mornin’ to my young missus [Miss Pope] and she say, ‘I slap your mouth for your impudence, you nigger.'” I have heard other stories that tell tales.

The white folks used to have no cooking-utensils of their own here. They came and required certain things. The cooks hunted among the huts and borrowed what they needed till the family went away, of course straining every nerve to get such cooking as should please. “I would do anything for my massa,” Susannah says, “if he would n’t whip me.”

On May 7, as Mr. Pierce stepped off the boat at Hilton Head and walked up the pier, a Mr. Nobles, chief of the cotton agents here, came forward saying that he had a letter for him. Then he struck him upon the head, felled him, and beat him, saying that Mr. P. had reported him to the Secretary of the Treasury and had got a saddle and bridle of his. Mr. Pierce got up with difficulty and took only a defensive part. Some soldiers took Mr. Nobles off. Mr. Pierce had really mentioned this man and his agents, which was his duty as guardian of these people, for they were imposing upon the negroes shamefully. They, of course, hate this whole Society of Superintendents, etc., who will not see the negroes wronged. So Mr. P. has had his touch of martyrdom.

The Philadelphia consignment of goods — in all $2000 worth — would have done immense good if it had come in season. The people of these islands, whom Government does not ration (because there is corn here) had nothing but hominy to eat, were naked, were put to work at cotton, which they hated, as being nothing in their own pockets and all profit to the superintendent, who they could not be sure were not only another set of cotton agents or cotton planters; and so discontent and trouble arose. Mr. Pierce said to them that they should be fed, clothed, and paid, but they waited and waited in vain, trusting at first to promises and then beginning to distrust such men as were least friendly to them.

The first rations of pork — “splendid bacon,” everybody says — was dealt out the other day and there has been great joy ever since, or great content. If this had only come when first ordered there would have been this goodwill and trust from the first. They even allow the removal of the corn from one plantation to another now without murmuring, and that they were very much opposed to before.

Post image for Three Years in the Confederate Horse Artillery — George Michael Neese.

Three Years in the Confederate Horse Artillery — George Michael Neese.

May 23, 2012

Three Years in the Confederate Horse Artillery — George Michael Neese.

May 23 — We renewed our march this morning down the Luray Valley. We passed some of Jackson’s infantry this afternoon. They were marching toward Front Royal. We are camped eight miles above Front Royal.

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Rebel War Clerk

May 23, 2012

A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, By John Beauchamp Jones

MAY 23D.—Oh, the extortioners! Meats of all kinds are selling at 50 cts. per pound ; butter, 75 cts.; coffee, $1.50; tea, $10; boots, $30 per pair; shoes, $18; ladies’ shoes, $15; shirts, $6 each. Houses that rented for $500 last year, are $1000 now. Boarding, from $30 to $40 per month. Gen. Winder has issued an order fixing the maximum prices of certain articles of marketing, which has only the effect of keeping a great many things out of market. The farmers have to pay the merchants and Jews their extortionate prices, and complain very justly of the partiality of the general. It does more harm than good.

Post image for Downing’s Civil War Diary.–Alexander G. Downing.

Downing’s Civil War Diary.–Alexander G. Downing.

May 23, 2012

Diary of Alexander G. Downing; Company E, Eleventh Iowa Infantry

Friday, 23d—We formed a line of battle at 4 o’clock this morning, but the rebels did not make their expected attack. The army generally now forms a line of battle every morning at 4 and remains in line until about 6 o’clock. It rained some today, and on account of the wet weather it was only at times that there was activity along the lines.

Post image for War Diary of Luman Harris Tenney.

War Diary of Luman Harris Tenney.

May 23, 2012

War Diary of Luman Harris Tenney.

23rd. Started at 8 A. M. for Iola. Marched fifteen miles. Saw George. Shaved by Charlie Fairbanks. Encamped out in the open air by Turkey Creek. A. B. and I cooked our suppers. Happy time. A grand ridge of mounds surrounds us.

Post image for Journal of Surgeon Alfred L. Castleman.

Journal of Surgeon Alfred L. Castleman.

May 23, 2012

Journal of Surgeon Alfred L Castleman.

23rd.—No movement. Should this journal, after I am gone, fall into the hands of persons, who shall undertake to read it, and shall complain that these everlasting records of “no movement,” “all quiet,” and “thunder storms,” are dry food for the mind, I answer them now : That the hardships which we suffer in this world, instead of awakening a sympathy for others in the same condition, are more apt to call up unworthy comparisons, with a remark, that “they need not complain; they are no worse off than we are.” And just so at this moment, I find the physical man of the army answering the complaints of mental man in civil life, finding fault with the dullness of these records. Try, says he, long camping and disappointed expectations, amid the swamps of the Chickahominy, living on half rations of hard crackers and salt beef, and you will then be able to appreciate the hardships of dry food, and the difficulty of assimulating from it moist ideas.

But, at 5 P. M.,—an event. Our Balloon is up, with Professer Lowe and General McClellan, taking observations of the enemy and his movements. Boom—speaks a big gun from away beyond the Chickahominy. Bang—a little cloud of smoke just over the balloon, and the fragments of a shell hiss and screech in all directions around it! Ah, General, are yon thinking. Eight hundred feet above the earth, how quickly that shell, or the one this moment coming in search of you, by a passing touch with the gossamar web which holds you suspended above your fellow men, would extinguish all the hopes and bright visions of political or military glory, which sometimes form the brightest jewel in the crown of patriotism? Or are you reflecting on the solicitude with which you are now watched by the tens of thousands of humble but anxious men, praying, without one selfish feeling, to the God of the patriot, to protect and preserve you, on whom they feel now rests the solution of the greatest problem, in the moral as well as the political history of the world? I wish I knew your thoughts just now. I wish I could know that they are as far above the grovelling, selfish ambition of some of those now watching you, as you this moment swing higher than they.

And now, oh General! look down, I beseech you, from your airy height, on your little army below, and devise means to preserve it from the temptations of the world, the flesh and the devil. Particularly guard from those evils, your officers; and most particularly your journeyman Generals. Teach them that it requires more than accidental promotion, or even accidental success without merit, to make great men of little ones. Teach them, I beseech you, the folly of vanity; whilst you inculcate the fact that many of your officers are doubly blessed with permission to carry all their brains in their shoulder straps, leaving their heads unincumbered, and to be used for substantial purposes.

Teach your men to be not only obedient and respectful, but submissive to the whims of then- superiors; that they have no right to any of the comforts to be gathered by the wayside; that should they find the fishes, the fruits, the poultry and other delicacies of the country guarded against their approach, for the comfort of their Generals, to remember that these Generals were never confined to hard bread and dried beef, on long marches, and can therefore never appreciate the wants and the sufferings of the common soldiers, who are; and that their might gives right to appropriate all these to themselves. Teach them that when, at the close of a hard day’s march, through mud and rain, should a “double quick” be required of them, their commander, being well mounted, can know nothing of the impossibility of obedience, and that terribly profane oaths are at such times the only gentlemanly invigorators known to Generals. Teach them that obedience from submission, and not from principle or affection, is the only rule to be recognized in your army; that in becoming soldiers they ceased to be men; and all for thy glory and thine honor.

Post image for Army letters of Oliver Willcox Norton.

Army letters of Oliver Willcox Norton.

May 23, 2012

Army letters of Oliver Willcox Norton (Eighty-third Pennsylvania Volunteers)

Cold Harbor, Powhite Swamp,Va..

Friday, May 23, 1862.

Dear Sister L.:—

I think I have not written to you since we left Yorktown. Doubtless you have plenty of papers and have heard all about that long ago. We went on board a steamer there and landed at West Point, the head of York river, the day after the battle and camped three days on the battlefield. We then followed the “river road” up the Pamunkey to Kent Court House, Cumberland and White House landing, Tunstall’s, Hanover, etc., on the road to Richmond. We are now within ten miles of the rebel capital. What lies beyond I do not know, but suspect that the enemy is in considerable force not far off. General Butterfield sent me an order this morning not to give the reveille with the bugle, and the bugles and drums are as silent to-day as they were before Yorktown. We have had all the varied experiences of the soldier in the field since leaving Yorktown, marching through rain and shine, mud and dust, wading through creeks and drawing artillery and baggage wagons out of the sloughs. We make slow but sure progress.

The country is as beautiful a section as I ever saw. Lovely scenery, glorious landscapes, everything is beautiful and “only man is vile.” Great clover fields in full bloom spreading away over gentle swells of ground and broad fields of wheat all headed out abound. We stopped three days at the “White House” on the Custis estate. This is a large plantation, seven thousand acres of very productive land on the Pamunkey river, late the property of the rebel General Lee. It is the old homestead of the Custis family and occupied by them in the days of Washington. Here Washington first met Martha Custis, and here, on the very spot where Lee’s White House now stands, they were married. There are several hundreds of slaves on the estate and we had the opportunities we wanted to talk with them. Oh, they were a happy set of darkies when they learned that they were free. They were most of them born on the place. I saw one old Uncle Tom, over sixty years old, who had never been five miles from the place in all his life. He had worn his life away on these fields. Contrabands are pouring in on us every day. Almost every officer has one or two along now. They hardly know what to do with themselves on learning that they will never be returned to their masters.

The white inhabitants of the country are a miserable set. Every house exhibits the white flag as our troops pass. They are mean enough to take advantage of such protection and refuse a drink of water to our troops almost suffocated with heat. We have had some days when we could scarcely march half a mile without resting. Some of the boys went to fill their canteens at a well near the road. The woman of the house came out and stood by the well and told them they might go to the river to drink. She wasn’t going to have the d—d Yankees drink out of her well. It was well for her she was a woman. Our boys would have knocked a man endways who would insult them in that way and perhaps put a bayonet through him. The men are just as mean as the women, but a little more discreet. I went to one of the white flag houses and said to the man who stood in the yard, “Where do you get water?” “No water here, sir, I have to tote all I use right smart o’ two miles.” “I couldn’t see” any such yarn as that, so I made a reconnoissance and found a splendid spring not a dozen rods behind the house. I filled my canteen, and. when I went up showed it to him, with, “What do you call that but water?” “Oh,” says he, “we don’t never use that.” Says I, “What kind of a flag do you call that?” “Flag— flag—Oh, that’s a white flag.” “What is that a sign of?” “It’s a sign of truth.” “Don’t you think it would look better for a little more coloring?” “Well, I don’t know but it would, but I hadn’t anything handy to color it with.” “Well, I think you better get it down as soon as possible and fix it over as near like that one as you can” ( pointing to our regimental colors). “Well, I guess I will if I can find anything about the house to color it with.” (Mem. I guess he won’t.) I bought a secesh bill of him, and, thinking possibly you haven’t seen any, I’ll send it to you. It is a specimen of Confederate States art, beautiful to see but “not worth a red” to spend. Save it as a memento of the war.

Post image for The Cruel Side of War – Katherine Prescott Wormeley.

The Cruel Side of War – Katherine Prescott Wormeley.

May 23, 2012

The Cruel Side of War - Katherine Prescott Wormeley

“Spaulding,” May 23.

Deab A.,—Your welcome letter came yesterday. It is great happiness to know that you enter into the thing so heartily. You are right; it is worth five years of other life, setting aside the satisfaction of doing something directly for the cause. We are still on board this ship, comparatively idle. Yesterday sixty men were sent down from the front; but the surgeon of the Shore hospital refused £o take them, alleging that he had no room. A tremendous thunder-storm came up, in the midst of which we ran up to the landing-place in our little tug, the “Wissahickon,” and found the men, who were lying on the ground by the side of the railway. We gave them brandy and water, tea and bread, washed them a little, brought off a dozen of the worst cases, and left the others comfortable for the night, with blankets and quilts, in two covered freight-cars. This morning we went up with their breakfast, and had the satisfaction of seeing them off in ambulances for the Shore hospital, owing to Mr. Olmsted’s strong remonstrances.

This vessel, the “Spaulding,” is filling today, and sails for New York on Sunday. We shall then go on board the “Elm City,” and the hospital company of that boat, including two ladies, Miss Whetten and Mrs. Strong, will take charge of this one. Mr. Olmsted has the greatest difficulty in preventing the authorities from forcing on our pity by their neglect the sick men who are now here and coming down daily. These men ought to be taken care of in tents ashore. If forced upon us and a battle occurs, our boats will be off with men who ought not to go, and we shall have no accommodation for the wounded. Yesterday and today we have heard cannonading at the bridge over the Chickahominy; and these slight skirmishes send us down a dozen or two of wounded daily, who are placed at once on board the “Elm City.”

General Van Vliet, Quartermaster-General of the Army of the Potomac, came to see us today, accompanied by Captain Sawtelle, Assistant-Quartermaster. The General was full of kindness and gallantry, — quite bubbled over with it; and offered us a railway-car to take us into Richmond as soon as it is occupied! We heard last night that McDowell’s pickets had met ours: God grant it may be true! There is little doubt that McDowell’s not being allowed to co-operate at Gloucester prevented the overthrow of the Rebellion at Yorktown; and yet this McClellan keeps on with a sunny heart, and, as General Franklin said, “does his best alone!”

On Wednesday we were invited on board the “Sebago,” Captain Murray. A gun-boat is very interesting. She carries two large guns and a few howitzers. The large guns (Parrotts, these were) stand in the middle of the deck, one aft, and the other forward, and turn on pivots in every direction. The bulwarks can be turned down, to allow the guns free range; they are turned up for a sea-voyage: but even then these boats ship a great deal of water. It was delightful to be on a trig man-of-war. The officers seemed so clean and fresh, after the dusty, thread-worn look of the army-officers. It is easy to keep neat on board ship, but very hard to do it on the march, especially through the red clay soil of Virginia. The “Sebago” was the gun-boat which, accompanied by a tiny propeller with one hundred and fifty infantry on board, ran a few miles farther up the Pamunky the other day, — at sight of which the enemy burned two steamers and twenty schooners.

Not much has happened to interest us out of our own world. To us the arrival of our various steamers, and the consequent visits, inquiries, and thefts, are matters of great importance. We go on board some newly arrived ship, and find up the parties in charge of the invoice: “Sixteen pails! we’ll take eight” “Essence of beef! we want all that;” “What! fifty cans?” “Fifty! we must have a hundred,” — and so on through sugar, arrowroot, farina, spices, lemons, whiskey, brandy, etc.; while the doctors make a raid of the same kind on the dispensary. Kleptomania is the prevailing disease among us. We think nothing of watching the proprietor of some nicety out of the way, and then pocketing the article. After such a visit, Georgy’s unfathomable pocket is a mine of wealth as to nutmeg-graters, corkscrews, forks and spoons, and such articles. I, being less nimble at pilfering, content myself by carrying off tin pails with an abstracted air. Perhaps our visits do not give the keen satisfaction to others that they do to us. But they are going back where they can get more; while to us who remain here, such articles are as precious as if they were made of gold.

I am perfectly well. To please others, I “prophylac” with the rest. I drink coffee in excess, and whiskey (with quinine) occasionally, and eat alarming dinners. We shall be thankful to get off this ship, where we have green velvet chairs to sit upon, and are unable to get proper cooking arrangements for the sick. “We regret our dear “Wilson Small,” where we lived on a permanent picnic, which was in keeping with our business and our spirit.

To-day Mr. Olmsted invited Mrs. Griffin and me to row with him along the shore. You know I dread little boats; but it was a prospect of enjoyment, and I could not forego it. The start was lovely. Mr. Olmsted rowed us close in shore, where the knotted roots of the outermost trees made a network, or paling, behind which drooped or glowed in their spring beauty the lovely trees of this region, among them the magnolia, the flowering catalpa, and the beautiful white fringe-tree. Presently some quartermaster hailed us, and we turned back to the “Spaulding,” which had swung to her anchor in the mean time, making the business of getting on board again so dreadful to me (Mrs. Griffin did not seem to mind it) that that moment is laid aside to come into play some day when I have brain-fever; and then I shall see the huge, black, bulging sides of the great ship hanging over me as I pop up and down in a paper boat.

Mrs. Griffin looked to-day so like a mediaeval Madonna, with her heavenly complexion, her golden hair, and the extremely angular appearance which we persist in keeping up without our hoops, that I was forced to suggest the idea to Mr. Olmsted, who entered thoroughly into it.

“…something of great importance is near at hand.” –Diary of Josiah Marshall Favill.

May 23, 2012

Diary of a Young Officer–Josiah Marshall Favill (57th New York Infantry)

May 23rd. At seven o’clock I rode out and withdrew the picket line under Jones, and when the brigade came along, we fell in to form the advance. It is by all odds the best position in a large army; one has first chance at everything, and there is a great fascination in leading an advancing army through an unknown, hostile country, especially when the armies are close together; although so near to Richmond at the start, we managed to make a long and tiresome march, roads dusty, and the day hot; about noon filed off the road into a field to the left, and went into bivouac. The pioneers put my office tent up and I went to work making out sundry reports. We are close to the Chickahominy now, and the rebels are within four miles of us, entrenched on the other side. On the 20th, Casey’s division, of the fourth army corps, crossed the river at Bottom bridge, and to-day the remainder of the corps is crossing. Franklin’s corps is on our right, with Porter’s in reserve; our second corps has the centre, and Keys the left; Stoneman and the cavalry are on the extreme right, about New Bridge; all facing the left bank of the river. We commenced bridging the river as soon as we got our tents up, and I suppose as soon as it is done, we shall cross over and attack. In the afternoon I packed up a large box of records, regimental books, and also the two silk guidons, and turned it over to the quartermaster to send to Washington for safe keeping; this diary goes with it, for no man can guess what the next few days may bring forth. Other preparations all indicate the near approach of the deadly struggle for supremacy. Three days’ rations are ordered to be prepared, and constantly maintained; sixty rounds of ammunition were served to each man at parade to-night, and all unnecessary camp equipage turned in to be sent away. One can easily see that something of great importance is near at hand by the quiet demeanor of the troops; they are evidently doing a good deal of thinking.

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