Following the American Civil War Sesquicentennial with day by day writings of the time, currently 1863.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Post image for “So many false rumors are about that no one knows what to believe.”–Army letters of Oliver Willcox Norton.

“So many false rumors are about that no one knows what to believe.”–Army letters of Oliver Willcox Norton.

May 10, 2011

Army letters of Oliver Willcox Norton (Eighty-third Pennsylvania Volunteers)

Camp Wilkins, Pittsburgh, Penn.,

Friday, May 10, 1861.

Dear Sister L.:—

I hardly know where to begin or what to write. My mind is, perhaps, in the same condition as yours—a good deal confused. It is a damp, rainy morning, so rainy that no companies will be out for drill until the weather is more favorable, so I have leisure to write. My health is tolerably good. I have been sick with a severe cold one day so I could not drill, but a wet towel cured that and I have had a turn of sick headache; beyond that I have been very well. I feel very well this morning. I had a good breakfast, had milk in my coffee, and last night we had butter.

The day I had the sick headache, I got nothing for breakfast but a piece of dry bread, and at noon we had a rice soup that was burnt so as to be nauseous. I ate a good quantity, however, and, consequently, unate it and ate no more till the next night.

We have fixed up our quarters first-rate. Four of us occupy a shed about ten feet by five feet. Plenty of lumber was furnished and we partitioned off a cabin, about half our room, and covered it all over except a little hole to crawl into. Inside we have a berth or bunk for one, and straw in the bottom for the rest, a first-rate camp. The front room we use for sitting room, parlor, reception room, reading room, writing room, etc., a place about five feet square.

We have lots of papers—New York, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Cleveland and Pittsburgh dailies, four or five every day. I have sent some home. In the Dispatch you can see an account of our proceedings last Sunday.

I got a pass and went out into the city yesterday. I took the morning’s mail down to the office. We had about one hundred papers and forty-eight letters. Our company has more letters and papers sent and received than any other three companies in the regiment. Our company has been selected to bear the regimental flag, as ours is the best flag in the regiment. In fact, I haven’t seen a nicer flag anywhere than ours. Being about medium height, my place is very near the flag.

But I am digressing—I was going to tell you what I saw in the city. I walked through a good share of the trading part of the city, seeing the lions and big black buildings, then I went down to the river and followed that up some distance. I then jumped on one of the cars of the horse railroad and went up to the United States arsenal. I had full liberty to walk about the grounds, but I could not enter any building. It is the most beautiful I have seen this long time. The grass is about six inches high and beautiful gravel walks run through it in all directions. Shade trees in full leaf are set all around, and lilacs, which are in full bloom, are set round in tasty places. I was just picking some of them to send to you when a couple of sentinels charged bayonets on me and I let ’em alone. They said no one was allowed to pick flowers or go on the grass. All well enough, I suppose, but I wanted some. I counted two hundred and forty-four cannon lying round in the yard, about sixty ten-inch Columbiads, and the rest from twelve to sixty-four-pounders, and I should think twenty-five or thirty cords of cannon balls and bomb shells. I saw eight guns and a lot of balls that were taken in the Revolution. One of the guns was marked W. Bowen, fecit, 1747, two others ditto 1755, one 1776 and two made in Paris. I should think as many as two hundred cannon are set round about the grounds as posts. The small arms I could not see, as they are all in the buildings. They are making a gun nineteen feet long and four feet across the muzzle, to carry a fifteen-inch ball.

One of the boys who went down to old Ft. Duquesne brought up a piece of bark from a log in the old fort built more than one hundred years ago. I got a piece, which just for a curiosity I send to you.

H. B.’s enlisting is just about what I expected to hear. D. T. too, is in. Well, success to them! I have seen C. R.’s father two or three times; had an introduction. He came to my door yesterday. He said our quarters looked about as comfortable as any.

I heard yesterday that we were ordered to march on Harper’s Ferry within ten days, but as nothing has been said about it publicly in camp, I don’t much believe it. So many false rumors are about that no one knows what to believe. I think, however, that we shall leave for somewhere soon. Government is making active preparations for war. One piece of news that we received from Girard caused a good laugh in our company, viz.: that the young ladies of Girard had presented ex-Lieutenant S. with a wooden sword.

Post image for William Howard Russell’s Diary:—Our captain and his slaves.—”Running” slaves.—Negro views of happiness.

William Howard Russell’s Diary:—Our captain and his slaves.—”Running” slaves.—Negro views of happiness.

May 10, 2011

My Diary North and South - William Howard Russell

Note: This particular diary entry—a document written in 1861—includes terms and topics that may be offensive to many today.  No attempt will be made to censor or edit 19th century material to today’s standards.

May 10th.—The cabin of one of these steamers, in the month of May, is not favorable to sleep. The wooden beams of the engines creek and scream “consumedly,” and the great engines themselves throb as if they would break through their thin, pulse covers of pine,—and the whistle sounds, and the calliope shrieks out “Dixie” incessantly. So, when I was up and dressed, breakfast was over, and I had an opportunity of seeing the slaves on board, male and female, acting as stewards and stewardesses, at their morning meal, which they took with much good spirits and decorum. They were nicely dressed—clean and neat. I was forced to admit to myself that their Ashantee grandsires and grandmothers, or their Kroo and Dahomey progenitors were certainly less comfortable and well clad, and that these slaves had other social advantages, though I could not recognize the force of the Bishop of Georgia’s assertion, that from slavery must come the sole hope of, and machinery for, the evangelization of Africa. I confess I would not give much for the influence of the stewards and stewardesses in Christianizing the blacks.

The river, the scenery, and the scenes were just the same as yesterday’s—high banks, cotton-slides, wooding stations, cane-brakes—and a very miserable negro population, if the specimens of women and children at the landings fairly represented the mass of the slaves. They were in strong contrast to the comfortable, well-dressed domestic slaves on board, and it can well be imagined there is a wide difference between the classes, and that those condemned to work in the open fields must suffer exceedingly.

A passenger told us the captain’s story. A number of planters, the narrator among them, subscribed a thousand dollars each to get up a vessel for the purpose of running a cargo of slaves, with the understanding they were to pay so much for the vessel, and so much per head if she succeeded, and so much if she was taken or lost. The vessel made her voyage to the coast, was laden with native Africans, and in due time made her appearance off Mobile. The collector heard of her, but, oddly enough, the sheriff was not about at the time, the United States’ Marshal was away, and as the vessel could not be seen next morning, it was fair to suppose she had gone up the river, or somewhere or another. But it so happened that Captain Maher, then commanding a river steamer called the Czar (a name once very appropriate for the work, but since the serf emancipation rather out of place), found himself in the neighborhood of the brig about nightfall; next morning, indeed, the Czar was at her moorings in the river; but Captain Maher, began to grow rich, he had fine negroes fresh run on his land, and bought fresh acres, and finally built the “Southern Republic.” The planters asked him for their share of the slaves. Captain Maher laughed pleasantly; he did not understand what they meant. If he had done anything wrong, they had their legal remedy. They were completely beaten; for they could not have recourse to the tribunals in a case which rendered them liable to capital punishment. And so Captain Maher, as an act of grace, gave them a few old niggers, and kept the rest of the cargo.

It was worth while to see the leer with which he listened to this story about himself, “Wall now! You think them niggers I’ve abord came from Africa! I’ll show you. Jist come up here, Bully!” A boy of some twelve years of age, stout, fat, nearly naked, came up to us; his color was jet black, his wool close as felt, his cheeks were marked with regular parallel scars, and his teeth very white, looked as if they had been filed to a point, his belly was slightly protuberant, and his chest was marked with tracings of tattoo marks.

“What’s your name, sir?”

“My name Bully.”

“Where were you born?”

“Me born Sout Karliner, sar!”

“There, you see he wasn’t taken from Africa,” exclaimed the Captain, knowingly. “I’ve a lot of these black South Caroliny niggers abord, haven’t I, Bully?”

“Yas, sar.”

“Are you happy, Bully?”

“Yas, sar.”

“Show how you’re happy.”

Here the boy rubbed his stomach, and grinning with delight, said, “Yummy! yummy! plenty belly full.”

“That’s what I call a real happy feelosophical chap,” quoth the Captain. “I guess you’ve got a lot in your country can’t pat their stomachs and say, ‘yummy, yummy, plenty belly full?'”

“Where did he get those marks on his face?”

“Oh, them? Wall, it’s a way them nigger women has of marking their children to know them; isn’t it, Bully?”

“Yas, sar! me ‘spose so!”

“And on his chest!”

“Wall, r’ally I do b’l’eve them’s marks agin the smallpox.”

“Why are his teeth filed ? ”

“Ah, there now! You’d never have guessed it; Bully done that himself, for the greater ease of biting his vittels.”

In fact, the lad, and a good many of the hands, were the results of Captain Maher’s little sail in the Czar.

“We’re obleeged to let ’em in some times to keep up the balance agin the niggers you run into Canaydy.”

From 1848 to 1852 there were no slaves run; but since the migrations to Canada and the personal liberty laws, it has been found profitable to run them. There is a bucolic ferocity about these Southern people which will stand them good stead in the shock of battle. How the Spartans would have fought against any barbarians who came to emancipate their slaves, or the Romans have smitten those who would manumit slave and creditor together!

To-night, on the lower deck, amid wood faggots, and barrels, a dance of negroes was arranged by an enthusiast, who desired to show how “happy they were.” That is the favorite theme of the Southerners; the gallant Captain Maher becomes quite eloquent when he points to Bully’s prominent “yummy,” and descants on the misery of his condition if he had been left to the precarious chances of obtaining such developments in his native land; then turns a quid, and, as if uttering some sacred refrain to the universal hymn of the South, says, “Yes, sir, they’re the happiest people on the face of the airth!”

There was a fiddler, and also a banjo-player, who played uncouth music to the clumsiest of dances, which it would be insulting to compare to the worst Irish jig, and the men with immense gravity and great effusion of sudor, shuffled, and cut, and heeled and buckled to each other with an overwhelming solemnity, till the rum-bottle warmed them up to the lighter graces of the dance, when they became quite overpowering. “Yes, sir, jist look at them how they’re enjoying it; they’re the happiest people on the face of the airth.” When “wooding” and firing up they don’t seem to be in the possession of the same exquisite felicity.

Post image for “I had not the moral courage to say, ‘I don’t approve of your war and won’t help you, particularly in the murderous part of it.'”–War Diary of a Union Woman in the South

“I had not the moral courage to say, ‘I don’t approve of your war and won’t help you, particularly in the murderous part of it.'”–War Diary of a Union Woman in the South

May 10, 2011

The American Civil War,War Diary of a Union Woman in the South by Dora Richards Miller

May 10, 1861.—I am tired and ashamed of myself. Last week I attended a meeting of the lint society to hand in the small contribution of linen I had been able to gather. We scraped lint till it was dark. A paper was shown, entitled the “Volunteer’s Friend,” started by the girls of the high school, and I was asked to help the girls with it. I positively declined. To-day I was pressed into service to make red flannel cartridge-bags for ten-inch columbiads. I basted while Mrs. S. sewed, and I felt ashamed to think that I had not the moral courage to say, “I don’t approve of your war and won’t help you, particularly in the murderous part of it.”

______

Note: To protect Mrs. Miller’s job as a teacher in New Orleans, the diary was published anonymously, edited by G. W. Cable, names were changed and initials were often used instead of full names — and even the initials differed from the real person’s initials.
Post image for “I hope an army will not attempt to march to Richmond. Should one do so, I believe it would be destroyed if less than fifty thousand.”—Horatio Nelson Taft

“I hope an army will not attempt to march to Richmond. Should one do so, I believe it would be destroyed if less than fifty thousand.”—Horatio Nelson Taft

May 10, 2011

Diary of US patent clerk Horatio Nelson Taft.

FRIDAY, MAY 10, 1861.

A bright morning, but rain all day after 12 o’clock. Troops continue to arrive, 30,000 here now. They are now mostly going into camp in the suburbs of the City. Reports of large bodies of troops in Virginia indicate work near here before long. I should not be much surprised to see them on Arlington heights any morning. I hope an army will not attempt to march to Richmond. Should one do so, I believe it would be destroyed if less than fifty thousand. Went down to “Camp Anderson” Franklin Square after dinner. There was no parade on account of the wet. Filled the Aquarium again tonight.

______

The three diary manuscript volumes, Washington during the Civil War: The Diary of Horatio Nelson Taft, 1861-1865, are available online at The Library of  Congress.

Post image for “We fight for existence — the enemy for Union and the freedom of the slave.”–Rebel War Clerk.

“We fight for existence — the enemy for Union and the freedom of the slave.”–Rebel War Clerk.

May 10, 2011

A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, By John Beauchamp Jones

MAY 10th. — The ladies are postponing all engagements until their lovers have fought the Yankees. Their influence is great. Day after day they go in crowds to the Fair ground where the 1st S. C. Vols. are encamped, showering upon them their smiles, and all the delicacies the city affords. They wine them and cake them — and they deserve it. They are just from taking Fort Sumter, and have won historic distinction. I was introduced to several of the privates by their captain, who told me they were worth from $100,000 to half a million dollars each. The Tribune thought all these men would want to be captains! But that is not the only hallucination the North labors under, judging from present appearances; by closing our ports it is thought we can be subdued by the want of accustomed luxuries. These rich young men were dressed in coarse gray homespun! We have the best horsemen and the best marksmen in the world, and these are the qualities that will tell before the end of the war. We fight for existence — the enemy for Union and the freedom of the slave. Well, let the Yankees see if this “new thing” will pay.

Post image for “How long it is since Sumter!”–Letters of a Family During the War.

“How long it is since Sumter!”–Letters of a Family During the War.

May 10, 2011

The American Civil War,Woolsey family letters during the War for the Union

Jane Stuart Woolsey to a Friend in Paris.

8 Brevoort Place, Friday, May 10, 1861.

I am sure you will like to hear what we are all about in these times of terrible excitement, though it seems almost impertinent to write just now. Everything is either too big or too little to put in a letter. Then one can’t help remembering sometimes that you are that august being, a “Tribune’s Own,” and as unapproachable on your professional pinnacle as the ornament of the Calendar whom Georgy will persist in calling Saint Simeon Stalactites. But the dampest damper to enthusiastic correspondents on this side is the reflection that what they write as radiant truth today may be “unaccountably turned into a lie” by the time it crosses the “big water.” So it will be best perhaps not to try to give you any of my own “views” except, indeed, such views of war as one may get out of a parlor window. Not, in passing, that I haven’t any! We all have views now, men, women and little boys,

“Children with drums

Strapped round them by the fond paternal ass,

Peripatetics with a blade of grass

Betwixt their thumbs,”—

from the modestly patriotic citizen who wears a postage stamp on his hat to the woman who walks in Broadway in that fearful object of contemplation, a “Union bonnet,” composed of alternate layers of red, white and blue, with streaming ribbons “of the first.” We all have our views of the war question and our plans of the coming campaign. An acquaintance the other day took her little child on some charitable errand through a dingy alley into a dirty, noisy, squalid tenement house. “Mamma,” said he, “isn’t this South Carolina?”

Inside the parlor windows the atmosphere has been very fluffy, since Sumter, with lint-making and the tearing of endless lengths of flannel and cotton bandages and cutting out of innumerable garments. How long it is since Sumter! I suppose it is because so much intense emotion has been crowded into the last two or three weeks, that the “time before Sumter” seems to belong to some dim antiquity. It seems as if we never were alive till now; never had a country till now. How could we ever have laughed at Fourth-of-Julys? Outside the parlor windows the city is gay and brilliant with excited crowds, the incessant movement and music of marching regiments and all the thousands of flags, big and little, which suddenly came fluttering out of every window and door and leaped from every church tower, house-top, staff and ship-mast. It seemed as if everyone had in mind to try and make some amends to it for those late grievous and bitter insults. You have heard how the enthusiasm has been deepening and widening from that time.

A friend asked an Ohio man the other day how the West was taking it. “The West? “ he said, “ the West is all one great Eagle-scream!” A New England man told us that at Concord the bells were rung and the President’s call read aloud on the village common. On the day but one after that reading, the Concord Regiment was marching into Fanueil Hall. Somebody in Washington asked a Massachusetts soldier: “How many more men of your state are coming?” “All of us,” was the answer. One of the wounded Lowell men crawled into a machine shop in Baltimore. An anti-Gorilla¹ citizen, seeing how young he was, asked, “What brought you here fighting, so far away from your home, my poor boy?” “It was the stars and stripes,” the dying voice said. Hundreds of such stories are told. Everybody knows one. You read many of them in the papers. In our own little circle of friends one mother has sent away an idolized son; another, two; another, four. One boy, just getting over diphtheria, jumps out of bed and buckles his knapsack on. One throws up his passage to Europe and takes up his “enfield.” One sweet young wife is packing a regulation valise for her husband today, and doesn’t let him see her cry. Another young wife is looking fearfully for news from Harper’s Ferry, where her husband is ordered. He told me a month ago, before Sumter, that no Northman could be found to fight against the South. One or two of our soldier friends are surgeons or officers, but most of them are in the ranks, and think no work too hard or too mean, so it is for The Flag. Captain Schuyler Hamilton was an aid of General Scott’s in Mexico, and saw service there, but he shouldered his musket and marched as a private with the Seventh. They wanted an officer when he got down there, and took him out of the ranks, but it was all the same to him; and so on, indefinitely.

The color is all taken out of the “Italian Question.” Garibaldi indeed! “Deliverer of Italy!” Every mother’s son of us is a “Deliverer.” We women regretfully “sit at home at ease” and only appease ourselves by doing the little we can with sewing machines and patent bandage-rollers. Georgy, Miss Sarah Woolsey and half a dozen other friends earnestly wish to join the Nurse Corps, but are under the required age. The rules are stringent, no doubt wisely so, and society just now presents the unprecedented spectacle of many women trying to make it believed that they are over thirty!

The Vermont boys passed through this morning, with the “strength of the hills” in their marching and the green sprigs in their button-holes. The other day I saw some companies they told me were from Maine. They looked like it — sun-browned swingers of great axes, horn-handed “breakers of the glebe,” used to wintering in the woods and getting frost-bitten and having their feet chopped off and conveying huge fleets of logs down spring-tide rivers in the snow and in the floods.— The sound of the drum is never out of our ears.

Never fancy that we are fearful or gloomy. We think we feel thoroughly that war is dreadful, especially war with the excitement off and the chill on, but there are so many worse things than gun-shot wounds! And among the worst is a hateful and hollow peace with such a crew as the “Montgomery mutineers.” There was a dark time just after the Baltimore murders, when communication with Washington was cut off and the people in power seemed to be doing nothing to re-establish it. It cleared up, however, in a few days, and now we don’t feel that the “social fabric”— I believe that is what it is called —is “falling to pieces” at all, but that it is getting gloriously mended. So, “Republicanism will wash”— is washed already in the water and the fire of this fresh baptism, “clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,” and has a new name, which is Patriotism.

_____

¹ That was the newspaper’s way of spelling “Guerilla.”

Post image for “How relieved we were to have a Government again!”—Diary of Rutherford B. Hayes

“How relieved we were to have a Government again!”—Diary of Rutherford B. Hayes

May 10, 2011

Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes

May 10, 1861.—Great events the last month. April 12 and 13, Fort Sumter [was] attacked and taken by the South Carolina troops by order of the Government of the Confederate States at Montgomery. Sunday evening, April 14, news of Lincoln’s call for 75,000 men [was] received here with unbounded enthusiasm. How relieved we were to have a Government again! I shall never forget the strong emotions, the wild and joyous excitement of that Sunday evening. Staid and sober church members thronged the newspaper offices, full of the general joy and enthusiasm. Great meetings were held. I wrote the resolutions of the main one,—to be seen in the Intelligencer of the next week. Then the rally of troops, the flags floating from every house, the liberality, harmony, forgetfulness of party and self—all good. Let what evils may follow, I shall not soon cease to rejoice over this event.

The resolutions referred to were published in the Gazette of the 16th [of] April and in the Intelligencer of the 18th.

[The resolutions were as follows:

“Resolved, That the people of Cincinnati, assembled without distinction of party, are unanimously of opinion that the authority of the United States, as against the rebellious citizens of the seceding and disloyal States, ought to be asserted and maintained, and that whatever men or means may be necessary to accomplish that object the patriotic people of the loyal States will promptly and cheerfully furnish.

“Resolved, That the citizens of Cincinnati will, to the utmost of their ability, sustain the general Government in maintaining its authority, in enforcing the laws, and in upholding the flag of the Union.”]

Post image for “War seems inevitable, and while I am trying to employ the passing hour, a cloud still hangs over us and all that surrounds us.”—Diary of a Southern Refugee.

“War seems inevitable, and while I am trying to employ the passing hour, a cloud still hangs over us and all that surrounds us.”—Diary of a Southern Refugee.

May 10, 2011

Diary of a Southern Refugee During the War by Judith White McGuire,The American Civil War

May 10.—Since writing last, I have been busy, very busy, arranging and rearranging. We are now hoping that Alexandria will not be a landing-place for the enemy, but that the forts will be attacked. In that case, they would certainly be repulsed, and we could stay quietly at home. To view the progress of events from any point will be sad enough, but it would be more bearable at our own home, and surrounded by our family and friends. With the supposition that we may remain, and that the ladies of the family at least may return to us, I am having the grounds put in order, and they are now so beautiful! Lilacs, crocuses, the lily of the valley, and other spring flowers, are in luxuriant bloom, and the roses in full bud. The greenhouse plants have been removed and grouped on the lawn, verbenas in bright bloom have been transplanted from the pit to the borders, and the grass seems unusually green after the late rains; the trees are in full leaf; every thing is so fresh and lovely. “All, save the spirit of man, is divine.”

War seems inevitable, and while I am trying to employ the passing hour, a cloud still hangs over us and all that surrounds us. For a long time before our society was so completely broken up, the ladies of Alexandria and all the surrounding country were busily employed sewing for our soldiers. Shirts, pants, jackets, and beds, of the heaviest material, have been made by the most delicate fingers. All ages, all conditions, meet now on one common platform. We must all work for our country. Our soldiers must be equipped. Our parlor was the rendezvous for our neighborhood, and our sewing-machine was in requisition for weeks. Scissors and needles were plied by all. The daily scene was most animated. The fires of our enthusiasm and patriotism were burning all the while to a degree which might have been consuming, but that our tongues served as safety valves. Oh, how we worked and talked, and excited each other! One common sentiment animated us all; no doubts, no fears were felt. We all have such entire reliance in the justice of our cause and the valor of our men, and, above all, on the blessing of Heaven! These meetings have necessarily ceased with us, as so few of any age or degree remain at home; but in Alexandria they are still kept up with great interest. We who are left here are trying to give the soldiers who are quartered in town comfort, by carrying them milk, butter, pies, cakes, etc. I went in yesterday to the barracks, with the carriage well filled with such things, and found many young friends quartered there. All are taking up arms; the first young men in the country are the most zealous. Alexandria is doing her duty nobly; so is Fairfax; and so, I hope, is the whole South. We are very weak in resources, but strong in stout hearts, zeal for the cause, and enthusiastic devotion to our beloved South; and while men are making a free-will offering of their life’s blood on the altar of their country, women must not be idle. We must do what we can for the comfort of our brave men. We must sew for them, knit for them, nurse the sick, keep up the faint-hearted, give them a word of encouragement in season and out of season. There is much for us to do, and we must do it. The embattled hosts of the North will have the whole world from which to draw their supplies; but if, as it seems but too probable, our ports are blockaded, we shall indeed be dependent on our own exertions, and great must those exertions be.

The Confederate flag waves from several points in Alexandria: from the Marshall House, the Market-house, and the several barracks. The peaceful, quiet old town looks quite warlike. I feel sometimes, when walking on King’s street, meeting men in uniform, passing companies of cavalry, hearing martial music, etc., that I must be in a dream. Oh that it were a dream, and that the last ten years of our country’s history were blotted out! Some of our old men are a little nervous, look doubtful, and talk of the impotency of the South. Oh, I feel utter scorn for such remarks. We must not admit weakness. Our soldiers do not think of weakness; they know that their hearts are strong, and their hands well skilled in the use of the rifle. Our country boys have been brought up on horseback, and hunting has ever been their holiday sport. Then why shall they feel weak? Their hearts feel strong when they think of the justice of their cause. In that is our hope.

Walked down this evening to see _____. The road looked lonely and deserted. Busy life has departed from our midst. We found Mrs. _____ packing up valuables. I have been doing the same ; but after they are packed, where are they to be sent? Silver may be buried, but what is to be done with books, pictures, etc.? We have determined, if we are obliged to go from home, to leave every thing in the care of the servants. They have promised to be faithful, and I believe they will be; but my hope becomes stronger and stronger that we may remain here, or may soon return if we go away. Every thing is so sad around us! We went to the Chapel on Sunday as usual, but it was grievous to see the change—the organ mute, the organist gone; the seats of the students of both institutions empty; but one or two members of each family to represent the absentees; the prayer for the President omitted. When Dr. _____ came to it, there was a slight pause, and then he went on to the next prayer—all seemed so strange! Tucker Conrad, one of the few students who is still here, raised the tunes; his voice seemed unusually sweet, because so sad. He was feebly supported by all who were not in tears. There was night service, but it rained, and I was not sorry that I could not go.

Post image for A Diary of American Events – May 10, 1861

A Diary of American Events – May 10, 1861

May 10, 2011

The American Civil War,The Rebellion Record—A Diary of American Events; by Frank Moore

.—The Confederate Secretary of War invested R. E. Lee with the control of the rebel forces of Va., by the following order:

Mongomery, May 10, 1861.

To Major-Gen. R. E. Lee:
To prevent confusion, you will assume the control of the forces of the Confederate States in Virginia, and assign them to such duties as you may indicate, until further orders; for which this will be your authority.
…………..I. P. Walker, Secretary of War.
—National Intelligencer, May 15.

—The Charleston News of this day contains the prayer of the Rev. James Bardwell, at the opening of the Tennessee Legislature on the 25th of April.—(Doc. 149.)

—In addition to the new Military Departments of Washington, Annapolis, and Pennsylvania, the States of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois will constitute a fourth, subdivided into several others, to be called the Department of the Ohio. Major-General McClellan, Ohio Volunteers, is assigned to its command; headquarters, Cincinnati.

The President, by general orders, directs that all officers of the army, except those who have entered service since 1st April, take and subscribe anew the oath of allegiance to the United States, as set forth in the 10th article of war.—N. Y. Evening Post, May 11.

—The First Regiment of Vermont Volunteers, commanded by Colonel J. Wolcott Phelps, arrived at New York, and took up their quarters in the Park Barracks. This regiment consists of ten companies—77 men each—of hardy Green Mountain boys, whose stalwart frames and broad shoulders are the envy of all beholders. These ten companies were selected from four different regiments. The uniform of the regiment is of gray cloth, each man being supplied with a heavy overcoat of the same material. One or two companies have a blue uniform instead of the gray. Each man wears a hemlock sprig in his hat. They are all supplied with new Minié muskets, but have no ammunition.

The men are nearly all Vermonters, there being scarcely a dozen foreigners in the regiment. They are all esteemed citizens at home, and nearly every one abandoned a profitable business to give his strong arm to his country. They have been encamped at Rutland, Vt., for the past eight days, completing their outfit, and when they came to strike their tents and take up the line of march, not a man was on the sick list. Their destination is Fort Monroe.

The character of the Green Mountain boys may be illustrated by the following incident: As the cars were leaving their camp-ground in Rutland, on the morning of the 9th instant, a private, in response to the cheers of the people, said: “The Vermont Regiment, citizens in peace, soldiers in war, give you the sentiment embodied in the charge of the Grecian matron to her son—We will bring back our shields or be brought back upon them.”—(Doc. 150.)

—The Protestant Episcopal Diocese of Alabama adopted the following ordinance:

“Whereas, the Constitution of the Diocese of Alabama was adopted when the said Diocese actually was, on the presumption of its continuing to be, a part of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States;’

“And whereas, the State of Alabama is no longer a part of the United States:

“Therefore, it is hereby declared by this convention that the first article of the constitution of the Diocese, with all those canons, or portion of canons, dependent upon it, are null and void.

“It is furthermore declared that all canons, or portions of canons, both diocesan and general, not necessarily dependent upon the recognition of the authority of the Church in the United States, are hereby retained in force.

“This declaration is not to be construed as affecting faith, doctrine or communion.”—N. O. Picayune, May 12.

—President Lincoln issued a proclamation directing the commander of the forces of the United States on the Florida coast to permit no person to exercise any office or authority upon the islands of Key West, the Tortugas, and Santa Rosa, which may be inconsistent with the laws and Constitution of the United States, authorizing him at the same time, if he shall find it necessary, to suspend there the writ of habeas corpus, and to remove from the vicinity of the United States fortresses all dangerous or suspected persons.—(Doc. 151.)

—Captain Tyler, of the Second Dragoons, commanding at Fort Kearney, fearing that a mob might take and turn against the garrison the ten twelve-pounder howitzers in his possession, spiked them. He had received orders to remove the pieces to Fort Leavenworth, but thought it unsafe to do so in the distracted state of the country. Threats had been made to take them from him—N. Y. Sun, May 14.

—The Second Regiment of Connecticut Volunteers, Colonel Terry, embarked from New Haven for Washington, on the steamer Cahawba. They marched down Chapel street, escorted by a large body of citizens, cavalry, a body of old New Haven Grays, and by the Emmot Guard—making a very fine appearance. The whole city was alive with people, and the route of the procession was a grand array of flags.—N. Y. Evening Post, May 11.

—The London News publishes an interesting article on the difficulties in the United States, and endeavors to indicate the position which the States under Jefferson Davis now occupy with relation to those under President Lincoln, and the status which both portions of the country now hold with relation to Great Britain and the rest of the world.—(Doc. 152.)

—The steamer Pembroke sailed from Boston, Mass., for Fort Monroe, with reinforcements, including Capt. Tyler’s Boston Volunteers, and a company from Lynn, under Capt. Chamber  —N. Y. World, May 11.

—The Winans steam-gun was captured this morning. A wagon, containing a suspicious-looking box and three men, was observed going out on the Frederick road from Baltimore, and the fact being communicated to General Butler, at the Relay House, he despatched a scouting party in pursuit, who overtook the wagon six miles beyond the Relay House, at Ilchester. On examination it was found that the box contained the steam-gun. It was being taken to Harper’s Ferry. The soldiers brought the gun and the three men back to the Relay House. The prisoners, one of whom was Dickenson, the inventor of the gun, were sent to Annapolis.— Baltimore American, May 11.

—The Diocesan Convention of Massachusetts passed resolutions in regard to the present state of affairs. One of them is as follows:—

Resolved, That the convention of clerical and lay delegates of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the diocese of Massachusetts do hereby express their heartfelt sympathy with the National Government in all right efforts to vindicate the authority of the Federal Union against “all sedition, privy conspiracy, and rebellion.”—Boston Advertiser, May 11.

—The Maryland Legislature passed a resolution, imploring the President of the United States to cease the present war.—(Doc. 153.)

—At about 2 P. M., a sudden movement was made by the U. S. forces in St. Louis under Capt. Lyon, upon Camp Jackson, near that city, by which the camp was entirely surrounded in less than half an hour, and compelled to an unconditional surrender. A great mob followed the U. S. troops to the camp, and began a noisy demonstration against them, and to throw stones. One company received the order to fire, and did so. Twenty-two persons were killed, and many were wounded. The mob then dispersed. A large quantity of arms and munitions were taken in the camp, together with 689 prisoners.—(Doc. 154.)