Tuesday, 31st—We remained in bivouac all day and have heard no news. We drew some clothing today. Our camp is located about thirty miles northwest of Beaufort. The country is very level and heavily timbered, chiefly with pine. It is thinly settled and the farms are small with nothing of consequence raised on them. The people are poor, the women and children being left destitute, as the men have all gone off to the war.
January 2015
January 31st. When off duty read, write letters, wash and mend my clothes. Try to keep clean and in good condition. Do my part handling an axe. We use up a whole lot of wood during this extreme cold weather. Try to keep as comfortable as we can. All sorts of questions come up for discussion. The close of the war is the most important. All companies do much singing during the evening. There are some violins and banjos in camp.
January 31, 1865.
Lay still all day. This place was a country summer resort. I was in a house to-day; the walls were rough boards white-washed, the floors were very rough, and I think had never been carpeted, yet the room was filled with mahogany furniture of the best quality, had a fine piano, splendid plate mirror, and a fine library. About 20 sets of buck horns were nailed to the walls in lines. Hear that the 17th Corps has crossed the Combahee. We hear that strict orders against burning and all foraging is to be done even more regularly than before.
31st. Tuesday. Millard on picket. Read “Rob Roy,” “Lucile,” Harper’s. Drilled.
January 31st.—Bright and frosty.
The “peace commissioners” remained Sunday night at Petersburg, and proceeded on their way yesterday morning. As they passed our lines, our troops cheered them very heartily, and when they reached the enemy’s lines, they were cheered more vociferously than ever. Is not this an evidence of a mutual desire for peace?
Yesterday, Mr. De Jarnette, of Virginia, introduced in Congress a resolution intimating a disposition on the part of our government to unite with the United States in vindication of the “Monroe doctrine,” i.e. expulsion of monarchies established on this continent by European powers. This aims at France, and to aid our commissioners in their endeavors to divert the blows of the United States from us to France. The resolution was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations.
If there be complication with France, the United States may accept our overtures of alliance, and our people and government will acquiesce, but it would soon grow an unpopular treaty. At this moment we are hard pressed, pushed to the wall, and prepared to catch at anything affording relief. We pant for a “breathing spell.” Sherman is advancing, but the conquest of territory and liberation of slaves, while they injure us, only embarrass the enemy, and add to their burdens. Now is the time for the United States to avert another year of slaughter and expense.
Mr. Foote has been denouncing Mr. Secretary Seddon for selling his wheat at $40 per bushel.
It is rumored that a column of the enemy’s cavalry is on a raid somewhere, I suppose sent out from Grant’s army. This does not look like peace and independence. An extract from the New York Tribune states that peace must come soon, because it has reliable information of the exhaustion of our resources. This means that we must submit unconditionally, which may be a fatal mistake.
The raiders are said to be on the Brooke Turnpike and Westhaven Road, northeast of the city, and menacing us in a weak place. Perhaps they are from the Valley. The militia regiments are ordered out, and the locals will follow of course, as when Dahlgren came.
Hon. Mr. Haynes of the Senate gives information of a raid organizing in East Tennessee on Salisbury, N. C., to liberate the prisoners, cut the Piedmont Road, etc.
Half-past two P.M. Nothing definite of the reported raid near the city. False, perhaps.
No papers from the President to-day; he is disabled again by neuralgia, in his hand, they say.
Boston, January 30, 1865
The more I think of the matter [national finances] the more persuaded I feel that my original impressions were correct and all my inquiries among business men here confirm my opinions. The Government is on the wrong track and the sooner it retraces its steps the better. I agree with you that this cannot be done at once, but I also believe that the new policy can be announced at once and that our future efforts should be directed through means distinctly avowed to the proposed end. The time has come for at least the enunciation of correct principles. A return to a specie basis for our expenditure is of course the end sought for. The means must be increased taxation and reduction of expenditure. Navy estimates could be reduced, bounties cut off, and, if we could get back to gold, all pay of officials cut down. In gold, the cost of the war is not now more than seven hundred millions a year. All authorities tell me that the letting loose of a comparatively small amount of cotton would turn exchange in our favor, and I am also assured that wealthy individuals here now hold large amounts of gold or its equivalents in Europe — out of danger, as it were. In the light of recent successes, symptoms of a return to sound financial principles would again recall this capital.
If these facts are as stated, the end and the means to the end could at least be set before the country and effort could be directed in correct channels. We should no longer financially be drifting. The very enunciation of correct principles would probably tumble gold down prodigiously, and any day after gold once approximates paper, a lucky find of cotton and one big, staggering effort might enable the Government to resume payment in specie. This even attempted, and our borrowing brought within bounds, would so restore confidence in our credit that the very attempt would be half the victory. I may be all wrong, but as yet the experiment has not been tried. Fessenden, having done us immense injury by doing nothing in the very crisis of our fate, is soon going out. Who is to succeed him? The very naming of his successor will go far to tell us whether we are to emerge from revolution through bankruptcy, or are to prove equal to the emergency.
They are discussing in Congress the question of retaliation of ill usage upon our prisoners of war. In the last Army and Navy Journal (that of the 28th) you will find my views on this subject in a communication signed by my initials. I hope you will look it up and let me know how it strikes you. I think the views will stand the test of humanity. If the rebels will feed our prisoners on turtle-soup, theirs should be fed on the same. If they give them a pint of meal a day, theirs should have no more, man for man. In a word the rebels should hereafter regulate wholly the treatment of prisoners.
Since I sat down to write this letter all my future prospects have undergone a change. As I was growling over the irregularity of mails, the door bell rang and Hull Adams rushed in in a tremendous hurry and then rushed out again, the bearer of an important message. Major General Humphreys, who now commands the Second, Hancock’s old Corps, had, in a roundabout way in lack of a better, sent through Mr. Campbell and Hull a message to me to the effect that he will be glad to have me on his staff as Assistant Inspector General of his Corps. General Humphreys was Meade’s Chief of Staff while I was at army headquarters, and is kind enough to say that he took a fancy to me, etc., etc. At any rate he has paid me a very high compliment. The position of Assistant Inspector General is generally considered the highest on the Staff — in a Corps it carries with it the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, and my predecessor under Hancock was also Chief of Staff and made Brigadier General. It is a position which I formerly greatly coveted. I shall accept this offer, at least for a time and return to a new and more influential life nearer Head Quarters. General Humphreys you must have heard of. He impresses me as one of the few able men I have met in the Army, and he is somewhat notorious as a tough old fighter. The whole matter is, of course, perfectly crude as yet, as I have neither answered, nor fully considered the proposition. . . .
Monday, 30th—We marched about three miles this morning and then went into bivouac to await further orders. The report is that we are now ready to make the grand raid through South Carolina. The Seventeenth and Fifteenth Corps are to form the right wing, as in the campaign through Georgia, with General O. O. Howard in command. General Slocum is in command of the left wing, composed of the other two corps, the Fourteenth and Twentieth, while Kilpatrick’s cavalry will take the flanks as rear guard. General Sherman is in chief command. General Foster, it is said, is either to remain here or move to Charleston.
January 30,1865.
As the moon has changed, Julia [the cook] has gone to making soap again. She is a strong believer in the moon, and never undertakes to boil her soap on the wane of the moon. “It won’t thicken, mist’ess—see if it does!” She says, too, we must commence gardening this moon. I have felt a strong desire today that my captured boys [slaves] might come back. Oh, how thankful I should feel to see them once more safe at home!
January 30th. Seven companies remain at regimental headquarters. The change makes extra duty for the companies at headquarters. Five prisoners were brought to camp, having been captured by our pickets. They were sent under guard to Harper’s Ferry.
McPhersonsville, S. C,
January 30, 1865.
We returned from Combahee river last night and at 10 p.m. received orders to move at 6 a.m. Came through Pocataligo and have made 14 miles to-day. Quite a place, but there is not even a clearing. Say 50 ordinary dwellings dropped down in the pine woods, and you have it. Not a citizen, white or black, here.
