September 15th. Weather fine. At this time duty is light in our camp near this town. Getting all the comfort we can out of our soldier life. Writing many letters to friends in good old Connecticut.
Monday, September 15, 2014
Thursday, 15th—The day has been pleasant. It is reported that the rebel cavalry is in strong force in this vicinity and it is a good thing that the expedition returned when it did.
Etowah Bridge, Thursday, Sept. 15. Health, spirits and weather very good. A train of forty wagons with a heavy cavalry escort went to Stilesboro, a guerrilla hole, two miles down the river. Returned loaded with cotton. Rebs burning it as fast as possible. This will amply pay for the mules they captured on the 13th inst. Went to town in the evening with Griff.
September 15th, 1864.
I have changed my quarters again. I was not needed at the hospital, there being as many nurses as patients. I cannot live here without some occupation. Captain Sudborough wished me to return to the regiment and assist him. This suited my inclination, and I went. I found the company books precisely as I left them, four months ago. I see plenty of work, and that is what I need—what I must have. I am always better satisfied when with the regiment. I left a nice house, but have another just as good. Soldiers soon learn to take care of themselves. The Ninth Corps held a grand review today, which, of course, means move.
Thursday, September 15. — Mrs. Crane’s son was drowned to-day. Nothing new about exchange. Subscribed to the Charleston Courier for one month.
September 15 — Our guns are parked at Gordonsville, and to-day I was detailed with a squad of six men to guard the parked guns, which duty we are performing this evening near the depot at Gordonsville.
15th. Thursday. Returned to Berryville. Rode rapidly without company most of the way.
We Leave Virginia.
Newbern, Sept. 15. On the 5th of this month the 23d and 25th Massachusetts embarked on the steamer Winona, from Bermuda Hundred bound for Newbern. The 9th New Jersey and 27th Massachusetts embarked on another boat at the same time for the same destination. On the morning of the 6th we ran up to Portsmouth, taking our camp equipage and knapsacks aboard, and ran back into Hampton Roads and anchored. There was a heavy storm blowing outside and we lay at our anchorage all day the 7th. On the 8th we steamed up and anchored off Fortress Monroe, but soon received orders to put out to sea. The captains of both boats objected to going, saying it was too rough to venture outside. On the morning of the 9th we received peremptory orders to pull up our mudhooks and start. Then ensued a sharp correspondence between our captain and some one in the fort, said to be Gen. Butler, and it certainly sounded a great deal like him. The captain objected to taking out his boat on the ground that she was only a light river boat and entirely unfit for an ocean trip, and besides was only chartered for the bay and rivers, and he did not feel like taking her out without first consulting her owners at Baltimore. Word came back that it made no difference about the owners or for what she was chartered, the boat was going to Newbern or go to pieces. In this dilemma the captain said that the boat might go but that he shouldn’t take the responsibility of taking her out. Soon word came back that he would take her out, or go into the fort, wearing a ball and chain. The captain, finding himself of no more account than a common soldier, was obliged to accept the situation. Toward night our consort, which was a sea-going boat, led off, we following after.
I felt a little nervous about going out to sea in so frail a craft, and thought it rather rough that after having gone through what we had we should be taken out to sea and drowned. I comforted myself with the thought that soldiers were not supposed to have any choice in the manner of their death. We found it rough going round Cape Henry, as there is almost always a chop sea there even in mild weather. Getting around the cape, we encountered heavy swells and rollers and every little while a big roller would strike us under the port guard and make every timber in the old craft snap. I expected every minute to see the guard, if not the whole deck torn off. I remained awake the whole night watching our consort, which kept just ahead of us, and reckoned on my chance for a swim.
We reached Hatteras inlet early on the morning of the 10th, and landed at Fort Spinola, on the south side of the Trent river at Newbern, in the afternoon. After landing we marched up into the camp of the 9th Vermont—a sick, ragged, dirty, lousy crowd. The Vermonters gathered wonderingly around us, extending us every sympathy and hospitality that lay in their power. The old regiment was divided off into three or four small companies, one of which under command of Capt. Emery, was sent out to Price’s creek, about a mile from here, to go into quarters and do some light picket duty. We have once more got ourselves cleaned up, our hair trimmed and dressed in clean, whole clothing, and begin to look quite like ourselves again.
We are again on our old stamping ground, but, alas, how changed! Only a small remnant now remains of that grand old regiment that left Worcester three years ago. They fill honored graves on half a hundred battlefields, they are inmates of every hospital from Boston to Newbern, and are wasting away in rebel prisons; a handful only remaining to tell the sad tale. In a few days more they will be still further decimated by a hundred or more whose time will be out and go home. The whole south for the past three years has been singularly exempt from the scourge of yellow fever, but it has now broken out in Newbern, and is raging to a great extent, 30 or 40 dying daily. It has not yet reached the camps outside the city, and hopes are entertained that it will not.
by John Beauchamp Jones
SEPTEMBER 15TH.—Bright and pleasant.
The firing was from our gun-boats and two batteries, on Gen. Butler’s canal to turn the channel of the river.
Our fondly-cherished visions of peace have vanished like a mirage of the desert; and there is general despondency among the croakers.
Mr. Burt, of South Carolina (late member of Congress), writes from Abbeville that Vice-President A. H. Stephens crossed the Savannah River, when Sherman’s raiders were galloping through the country, in great alarm. To the people near him he spoke freely on public affairs, and criticised the President’s policy severely, and the conduct of the war generally. He said the enemy might now go where he pleased, our strength and resources were exhausted, and that we ought to make peace. That we could elect any one we might choose President of theUnited States, and intimated that this would enable us to secure terms, etc., which was understood to mean reconstruction of theUnion.
A dispatch from Gen. Hood, dated yesterday, says Wheeler has been forced, by superior numbers, south of theTennessee River; and he now proposes that he (W.) shall retreat south along the railroad, which he is to destroy. This is the very route and the very work I and others have been hoping would engage Wheeler’s attention, for weeks. For one, I am rejoiced that the enemy “forced” him there, else, it seems,Sherman’s communications never would have been seriously interrupted. And he proposes sending Forrest to operate with Wheeler. Forrest is inMobile
Gen. Morgan’s remains are looked for this evening, and will have a great funeral. And yet I saw a communication to the President to-day, from a friend of his in high position, a Kentuckian, saying Morgan did not die too soon; and his reputation and character were saved by his timely death! The charges, of course, will be dropped. His command is reduced to 280 men; he was required to raise all his recruits inKentucky.
