Nashville, Tuesday, Jan. 10. On guard. Stood about sixty rods from camp on a pile of shakes in a cold disagreeable rain, the wind blowing furiously. I still feel very bad, unfit to stand guard but will try to stand now that I have commenced it.
Saturday, January 10, 2015
January 10th. During the past few days we had all kinds of weather, starting in with a cold rain, turning to hail, and winding up with a heavy snow storm. Now we have to go through about twelve inches of snow. The surrounding country for miles does look gloomy enough. Heard bells and saw one sleigh going down the pike. Lieutenant Joseph P. Rockwell elected, or rather made, Captain of our company, C. Our Lieutenants, Merwin and Cowles, are still held as prisoners of war since June 15th, 1863. We are all hoping this will be our last winter in the service. Our time will be out when the war is over, we are in for three years, or during the war.
Thunderbolt, Ga., January 10, ’65.
We joined the brigade in the suburbs of the city, and took the shell road to this place, only four miles by land, but 18 by water. There are some fine works here, erected by the Rebels to guard the water approach to the city. I send you a little chip of a palmetto log in a Rebel work here.
10th. Tuesday. Officer of the day. Brigade Hdqrs. A pleasant ride around the lines.
[Tuesday evening, January 10, Hayes started for Ohio by railway. He reached the Ohio River the next day at Benwood and there took a steamer, filled with “oil or petroleum speculators,” for Parkersburg. He arrived at Chillicothe January 12, where he found Mrs. Hayes afflicted with rheumatism. A month was spent in Ohio with wife and children at Chillicothe and in visits to relatives and friends at Columbus, Delaware, Fremont, and Cincinnati. He was back at Cumberland, Thursday, February 9.]
Tuesday, 10th—Our division moved out to the front about five miles and went into camp again. We had to move because we had burned up all the fallen timber around our camp, while at the new camp we will have plenty. It rained quite hard this afternoon and then turned colder at night. The country through which we passed is on a dead level, and the plantations lie idle. All of the buildings and fences were burned by our armies operating in this part of the state before our arrival.
January 10th.—You do the Anabasis business when you want to get out of the enemy’s country, and the Thermopylae business when they want to get into your country. But we retreated in our own country and we gave up our mountain passes without a blow. But never mind the Greeks; if we had only our own Game Cock, Sumter, our own Swamp Fox, Marion. Marion’s men or Sumter’s, or the equivalent of them, now lie under the sod, in Virginia or Tennessee.
January 10th.—Rained hard all night. House leaking badly!
We have nothing new in the papers this morning. It is said with more confidence, however, that Butler’s canal is not yet a success. Daily and nightly our cannon play upon the works, and the deep sounds in this moist weather are distinctly heard in the city. The amount of requisition for the War Department for 1865 is $670,000,000, and a deficiency of $400,000,000!
Mr. Hunter had his accustomed interview with Judge Campbell this morning in quest of news, and relating to his horoscope. His face is not plump and round yet.
A Mr. Lehman, a burly Jew, about thirty-five years old, got a passport to-day on the recommendation of the Secretary of the Treasury, to arrange (as agent, no doubt) for the shipment of several thousand bales of cotton, for which sterling funds are to be paid. No doubt it is important to keep the government cotton out of the hands of the enemy; and this operation seems to indicate that some fear of its loss exists.
Some 40,000 bushels of corn, etc. were consumed at Charlotte, N.C., the other day. A heavy loss! Both the army and the people will feel it. There seems already to exist the preliminary symptoms of panic and anarchy in the government. All the dignitaries wear gloomy faces; and this is a gloomy day—raining incessantly. A blue day—a miserable day!
The city council put up the price of gas yesterday to $50 per 1000 feet.
