7th. Got clothing and issued. Not very well today. Have had several good games of chess with Major. Wrote to Roxena yesterday.
Monday, July 7, 2014
Thursday, July 7. — Court-martial tried the case of Captain Howell of the 179th New York. Had the ditches deepened, and whole place improved. During night there was quite heavy picket firing.
Thursday, 7th—It is quite warm. Still skirmishing and cannonading. The wounded in the hospital are getting along fine.
[A letter from their mother to Jerry.]
Methuen, July 7, 1864
My dear son Jed:
We received your kind letter of the 23rd in due time. I have not learned from either of you since; our anxiety is intense. We know you would write if possible, for the reason you always have. It may be the mail or something of that kind. Do write on receiving this, if you are alive.
I suppose those that are to come home from your company are on the road; how glad I should be if both of your times had been out; but I must wait with submission. I am dreading the sickly season. Do be as careful of yourself as possible, and let us know if you are sick.
Is it the same doctor you had at Harper’s Ferry? Does the chaplain remain with you?
Grandmother’s family are feeling bad about George. I hope he will keep well and have enough to eat. Does anybody know where they went, what part of the South? He may find his mother; she is in Mobile. His brother Milburn is not in the army, but at school, and so is Sarah.
We all feel anxious about you both; all we can do is to pray for you. Everybody enquires for you. Great praise is awarded Lev. for his courage and patriotism in leaving home at such a time. Everybody felt for him, but nobody can feel as I do. Such an anxiety no one but a mother feels.
I have written a few lines to your doctor. I felt as though I must. I shall enclose with this much love to Lev., and may God spare you both from sickness and death is the constant prayer of your mother.
Father is very busy commencing haying. Help is very scarce.
We are all well in body, but anxious in mind.
Mother.
July 7, 1864.
The shooting still continues in our front, but hear no Rebel artillery. The water here is excellent, and everybody seems to get a few blackberries. We also stew grapes and green apples, and everything that ever was eaten by anti-cannibals. There is so much confounded fighting to be attended to that we can’t forage any, and though fresh beef is furnished to the men regularly there is some scurvy. I have seen several black-mouthed, loose-toothed fellows, hankering after pickles. Teamsters and hangers-on who stay in the rear get potatoes, etc., quite regularly. I do not believe the Johnnies intend fighting again very strongly this side of the river. Our scouts say that between the river and Atlanta the works run line after line as thickly as they can be put in. Per contra, two women who came from Atlanta on the 6th say that after we get across the river we will have no fighting, that Johnston is sending his troops to Savannah, Charleston, Mobile and Richmond, except enough to fight us at different river crossings. Our scouts also say that the Rebels are deserting almost by thousands, and going around our flanks to their homes in Tennessee, Kentucky, etc. I have not been in a house in Georgia, but several citizens I have met in camp said they had heard many soldiers say they would never cross the river with Johnston since the charge of the 27th.
Harrow has kept our brigade in reserve, and I think he will continue to do so unless a general battle is fought. We have suffered more heavily than any other two brigades in the army, and when we started we were one of the smallest. I am willing to see some of the others go in a while, though I want to help if Johnston will stand a fair fight in open ground. The chigres are becoming terrific. They are as large as the blunt end of a No. 12 and as red as blood. They will crawl through any cloth and bite worse than a flea, and poison the flesh very badly. They affect some more than others. I get along with them comparatively well, that is, I don’t scratch more than half the time. Many of the boys anoint their bodies with bacon rinds, which the chigres can’t go. Salt-water bathing also bars chigres, but salt is too scarce to use on human meat. Some of the boys bathing now in a little creek in front of me; look like what I expect “Sut Lovegood’s” father did after plowing through that hornet’s nest. All done by chigres. I believe I pick off my neck and clothes 30 varieties of measuring worm every day. Our brigade quartermaster yesterday found, under his saddle in his tent, a rattlesnake, with six rattles and a button.
This is the 68th day of the campaign. We hope to end it by August 1st, though if we can end the war by continuing this until January 1st, ’65, I am in. Reinforcements are coming in every day, and I don’t suppose we are any weaker than when we left Chattanooga. The Rebels undoubtedly are, besides the natural demoralization due to falling back so much must be awful. My health is excellent. Remember me to all the wounded boys of the 103d you see.
Thursday, July 7, 1864. — Ordered to Parkersburg and East tomorrow. I go on steamboat with Third and Fourth Reserves, Captain Moulton, to Gallipolis.
by John Beauchamp Jones
JULY 7TH.—Hot and dry, but a light shower at 2 P.M., laying the dust.
A letter from Gen. Gilmer states that the Danville Railroad will not be fully repaired before the last of this month. But there is a good wagon road, and the army can be supplied by wagons when the cars cannot run, sonic 25 miles.
There is an idle rumor thatWilmington has been taken by the enemy. This, indeed, would hurt us. But we get neither letters nor dispatches from beyondPetersburg.
Last week, when the local forces were recalled, one of the clerks in the Treasury Department, upon being dismissed, fell upon his lieutenant, who had insulted him while in the military service, and as a civilian, gave him a beating. To-day the officer, after consulting his lieutenant-colonel commanding, and, it is said, the Secretary of War, sent a subaltern to the department to arrest the clerk, who resisted. The subaltern said he acted by authority of the lieutenant-colonel and the Secretary of War, and would arrest him and throw him in prison, if he had to come with force enough to pull down the building. To all this the Secretary of the Treasury demurred, and made a formal complaint to the President, who most indignantly indorsed on the paper that the conduct of the officer was “very reprehensible,” that if when the offense was committed, the battalion had been dismissed, the military authority of the officers ceased, and as civil officers, all were on the same footing. He ordered the Secretary to make this known to the officers, etc. None believe now that the President ever threatened to turn the clerks out of office, as represented, nor wished them put in the army, as hinted.
Kingston, Thursday, July 7. The day was exceedingly warm. Grazed only once to-day. Drew rations. No sugar to be had. Just the time we need it with blackberries. Waiting all day for train from North. Rebels took a train last night near Dalton and mail. Afraid they got my letter. The citizen that led the guerrillas in (for they are nothing else) was unceremoniously hung by the citizens of the place. Camp is full of rumors. Atlanta is taken several times during each day. One thing is certain, they are dogged. From Kenesaw Mountain train after train of prisoners go to the rear.
July 7th. Rain this morning. Late last night the train got under way. Kept running all night. Soon after daylight a number of us climbed to the top of the cars. I always did that when I could. It relieved the packed condition of the inside. I have slept many miles while riding on top of the old box cars. The B. & O. R. R. leads through a mountainous country, West Virginia. As we rounded a curve we saw a large hole in the mountain. There came a shout for every man to lie down as the train entered a tunnel, a long one. We lay face downward. Thought the heavy smoke from the engine would smother me. A fearful experience. Before I could get down into the car we entered another. As soon as we passed through the second one, I made haste, got inside. That was tunnel riding enough for me.
Passed through Clarksburg and Grafton. Nothing important transpired during the run so far. The train moved along very slowly with its human freight, packed in filthy old box cars, soldiers who were fighting for our country. Wonderful how patient the men are, and what we have to endure. In the filthy box cars we came in contact with an army of pediculers.
