Thursday, 8th.—General Morgan killed at Greeneville, Tenn.
Monday, September 8, 2014
September 8th. This morning comes in cool and very cloudy. An opportunity given us to send money home. I sent seventy dollars to put in bank. Did not wish to carry so much with me. One cannot tell what might happen to a soldier, for we remember that every battle kills a soldier. Orders came about ten A. M. to fall in, double quick. The result was we made a forced march across country, through muddy lots, until we came to Summit Point, near the Winchester Pike. A hard march that put us on the right of the line of battle. A march of about ten miles from Charlestown to Winchester Pike. Why it was a forced march in a cold rain storm, we cannot tell. It was through Virginia sticky mud. At this point all things seem to be quiet. Orders to make camp and put up our shelter tents. This all comes in the life of a soldier in the field during war. Obey orders and don’t ask questions.
Etowah Bridge, Thursday, Sept. 8. One detail sent out after two loads of corn, cut it in the field. Five hundred more prisoners passed North. Trains run regular from Chattanooga, carrying supplies of which there is enough to feed the army for several months yet. Horses can live off the country, but rather scarce picking for us.
September 8th, 1864.
Early next morning we resumed our march, and continued it until within a half mile of the place we vacated yesterday with so little ceremony. Here we set to work as though it had all been “part of the original plan,” and tonight have our hospital in good working order. This time there is no style. Judging by contraries, we will remain here for some time.
We did not leave the old ground a minute too soon. That very day the Rebels, in trying to shell the railroad, shelled our old camp. A half mile beyond was General Meade’s headquarters. They made it so hot he was compelled to get out in a hurry.
The Chicago convention has met and done exactly what everyone here expected it to do—nominated McClellan for the Presidency. My feelings for him are mixed—pity and contempt—pity that the once mighty McCIellan should fall so low; contempt that he allow ambition to ruin him. Henceforth “Little Mac” is powerless. Whether he accept or reject, there is no more magic in his name. Poor old dog Tray, your experience was identical with that of McCIellan. On the other hand, “Old Abe’s” prospects are brightening. Sherman is successful in “stumping” Georgia. His “speech” at Atlanta is working wonders here. Even Rebels are affected by it, and many have already “come over and joined our side.”
Some of our men are disposed to speak bitterly of the manner in which “volunteers are raised” in the North. I consider it magnanimous, in those patriotic men who are exposed to the draft, to allow the wives and widows of soldiers to contribute their mite toward buying substitutes. And there is some compensation in this. We want men who will fight. Most foreigners will do that; so will negroes. Copperheads’ will not; at least on our side. This money, with that wrung from the wives and widows of soldiers, will buy foreigners and negroes; and so we get the men.
Thursday, September 8. — Had the mattress taken apart and cleaned. Day pleasant.
Camp of Sheridan’s Army near Berryville, Virginia,
September 6, P. M., 1864.
Dear Uncle: — Saturday evening (September 3) my brigade and two regiments of the other brigade of the Kanawha. Division fought a very fierce battle with a division of South Carolina and Mississippi troops under Kershaw. We whipped them handsomely after the longest fight I was ever in. Toole seventy-five officers and men prisoners and inflicted much severer loss than we suffered. Prisoners say it is the first time their division was ever flogged in fair fight.
My color-bearer was killed and some of the best officers killed or wounded. We have fought nine times since we entered this valley and have been under fire, when men of my command were killed and wounded, probably thirty or forty times since the campaign opened. I doubt if a brigade in Sherman’s army has fought more. None has marched half as much. I started with twenty-four hundred men. I now have less than twelve hundred, and almost none of the loss is stragglers.
I hope they will now get Sherman’s army to Richmond. It will be taken if they do it promptly, otherwise I fear not for some time.
McClellan would get a handsome soldiers’ vote if on a decent platform; as it is, he will get more than any other Democrat could get.
I am glad that you feel as you do about my safety. It is the best philosophy not to borrow trouble of the future. We are still confronted by the enemy. I can’t help thinking that the fall of Atlanta will carry them back to Richmond. What a glorious career Sherman’s army has had! That is the best army in the world. Lee’s army is next. There is just as much difference between armies, divisions, brigades, etc., as between individuals. Crook, I think, has the best and the worst division in this army. Of the one you can always count upon it, that it will do all that can be expected, and of the other that it will behave badly.
Sincerely,
R. B. Hayes.
September 8. — Nothing new except that the Rebels have drawn back perhaps ten miles from our front, possibly gone back to Richmond.
S. Birchard.
Near Eastpoint, September 8, 1864.
We are again in camp for a rest; don’t know for how long. What do you think now of the confidence I have so often expressed to you in Sherman and his army? I have every hour of the campaign felt that a failure in it was impossible.
8th. Thursday. Rainy and cool. Lay still all day. Read “Charles Vivasseur.” Wagons came up, oats and rations. Wrote home and to Mrs. Wood.
by John Beauchamp Jones
SEPTEMBER 8TH.—Bright and cool; subsequently cloudy and warm.
Dispatches from Gen. Hood (Sept 7th) state—1st dispatch: thatSherman still holds his works one and a half miles from Jonesborough. 2d dispatch, same date: “Sherman continues his retreat!” He says, in a 3d dispatch, that Sherman visited the hospitals, and said he would rest awhile at Atlanta, and then march away to Andersonville, where we keep the Federal prisoners. Although Hood attaches no importance to declarations from such a source, yet he deems it a matter of first importance to remove the prisoners, which suggestion Gen. Bragg refers to the Secretary of War without remark. Gen. Hood also urges the reinforcing of his army from the trans-Mississippi Department. He is sending a brigade toOpelika, to await a raid.
Gen. Forrest has been ordered, the President approving, to Middle Tennessee; but, contrary to his desire, he is not allowed to proclaim amnesty to the thousands of deserters expected to join him, so firmly do the President and Gen. Bragg adhere to Gen. Lee’s advice never to proclaim pardon in advance to deserters, even at this critical epoch in our affairs.
All of us have been made sick by eating red peas, or rather overeating.
Our cause is in danger of being lost for want of horses and mules, and yet I discovered to-day that the government has been lending horses to men who have but recently suffered some of the calamities of war! I discovered it in a letter from the Hon. R. M. T. Hunter, of Essex County, asking in behalf of himself and neighbors to be permitted to retain the borrowed horses beyond the time specified—Oct. 1st. Mr. Hunter borrowed two horses and four mules. He is worth millions, and only suffered (having a mill burned) his first loss by the enemy a few weeks ago! Better, far better, would it be for the Secretary to borrow or impress one hundred thousand horses, and mount our infantry to cut the communications of the enemy, and hover on his flanks like the Cossacks inRussia.
