Tuesday, 1st—We drew our cooking utensils and rations for five days. John Batderf, Joseph Tomlinson and I were put in as cooks for the company. We have company drill four hours a day. It seems that we are in camp this time for business. My bunk-mate is James M. Fossett, a brother of Thomas Fossett. James enlisted this time instead of his brother. He’s a fine fellow for a bunk-mate.
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Camp Sewell, October 1, 1861. — About a week ago I left Camp Scott, or Cross Lanes, and came over to General Cox’s camp on the top of Sewell Mountain. Our Secesh friends are fortifying in sight. I staid with McCook. General Cox is an even-tempered man of sound judgment, much loved by his men. McCook and he both wanted to occupy Buster’s Knob on the left of our enemy’s camp, but a dispatch from General Rosecrans prevented. The next day the enemy were fortifying it. General Schenck takes command of our brigade. I have tried five cases the last two days. We had a rain-storm, cold, windy, and awful. Must go to winter quarters. The enemy still fortifying. Our pickets killed a colonel or lieutenant-colonel of the enemy who rode among them. All wrong and cruel. This is too like murder. Shooting pickets, etc., etc., ought to be put down. Another cold night. Jolly times we have in camp.
1st. My birthday (twenty)—what a contrast between this one and that of the year before. Spent the day about as usual.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1861.
Have had a hard days work moveing down our Furniture. Had six wagon loads left after our sale but I take back some articles from Mr Peck which he bid off having concluded [to] remain in the City awhile longer. We are in a very pleasant neighborhood and pleasant part of the City. Our troops have advanced somewhat within a day or two on the other side of the River but no fighting yet of any account.
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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.
Headquarters 79th Regt.
Camp Advance, Co. K.
Virginia, 1861.
Dear Mother:
A most delightful moonlight forbids my retiring at the usual hour to rest, so I will write and let you know that all is well — that we have had a dull week, that there has been naught to stir the sluggish blood since last week save once, when it was thought that the Army of Beauregard was marching in heavy columns upon us, but it didn’t come, so we all said: “Pooh, pooh! We knew it wouldn’t. They are too wise to attack us.” Alas, that we should have to tell that sorry tale of Bull Run! Walter has written me, and is full of our defeat. He does not feel flattered by the cheap lithographs in the shop windows representing “Yankees Running,” which are thrust upon his sight all over England. He is delighted though to think that the 79th did well, and that I was a member of the Highland Regiment. As we file out of our camp, full equipped, the soldiers of other Regiments are wont to say, “There go the Highlanders. There will be fighting to-day.” We are now formidably intrenched, and I think can make a tolerable defence against the foe. The Richmond Examiner says: “We” (the Southerners) “flaunt our flag defiantly in the face of the cowed and craven-hearted foe, but they tamely endure the insults we heap upon them, and refuse to accept our challenge to a fair and open fight.” Well I think we can afford to endure the flaunting of the “stars and bars” until McClellan is ready, when we hope to march forward, seeking winter quarters in the pleasant mansions of the South. Just this same thing the Southerners are hoping to gain in the North. Beauregard thinks Philadelphia, Baltimore and New-York gay places in the season, where the Southern youth may join in the festivities of winter. Nous verrons.
We have a little parson in our regiment who has a due regard for his personal safety. We love to get him into our tents, and describe with graphic truthfulness the horrid nature of shell wounds. The worst of shells too, we add, is, that they can be thrown to such a distance that even the Doctor and Chaplain are exposed to their death-bearing explosions. Our parson grows uneasy, and. when an alarm is given, starts off, carpet-bag in hand, to our intense amusement, for the nearest place of safety. He is like that worthy chaplain who, on the eve of battle, told the soldiers, “Fear not, for those of you who fall will this night sup in Paradise.” The battle commenced and the chaplain began to display most entertaining signs of terror. He was reminded of the consoling language he had himself used in the morning. “No thank ye,” he answered quickly, “I never did like suppers.” To such an extent are we obliged to resort to everything to amuse ourselves. Our darkeys give us some amusement and much more trouble. Ours we have dubbed the “Pongo,” who knows how not to do it. in a manner to excite our unbounded admiration. In the evening these Africans have a way of getting around the fire and singing real “nigger melodies,” which are somewhat monotonous as regards the music, and totally idiotic as regards the words. A favorite of theirs goes thus — viz:
My little boat is on de ocean
Where de wild bird makes de music
All de day.
This will sometimes be repeated for a couple of hours by the indefatigable nigger — indefatigable in this alone.
Good-bye, darling mother.
Most affec’y.,
W. T. Lusk.
Tuesday, October 1st.—Rain’s Regiment and Allison’s Company returned to camp at Camp Buckner. Companies B and C of McNairy’s Battalion remained at Barboursville.
OCTOBER 1ST.—I find that only a few hundred alien enemies departed from the country under the President’s proclamation, allowing them forty days, from the 16th of August, to make their arrangements; but under the recent order of Mr. Benjamin, if I may judge from the daily applications, there will be a large emigration. The persons now going belong to a different class of people: half of them avowing themselves friendly to our cause, and desiring egress through our lines on the Potomac, or in the West, to avoid being published as alien enemies going under flag of truce via Norfolk and Fortress Monroe. Many of them declare a purpose to return.
Rev. Henry Hopkins to Eliza Woolsey Howland.
City Hotel Hospital, ……………
Alexandria, Oct, 1861.
My dear Mrs. Howland: I want to tell you how I am coming on here in my new field, for at Washington I received the impression, which it will take a long time to wear away, that you and Miss Woolsey are cordially interested in all that concerns me in this work.
Dr. Sheldon is entirely propitious thus far. . . . Those who are religious women among the nurses hail my coming with real joy. The very first one whom I encountered was such a woman, and as I sat down in her cheerful ward before the bright fire on the hearth, talking with the men, a poor emaciated creature who was sitting wrapped in blankets, with his feet upon a pillow, asked me—“Are you a physician?” “No,” I told him, “I am a clergyman.” He stretched out his lean hand to me, and said—“Oh, sir, I am so glad to see you. I have been very sick, so that they gave me up, and now I am getting well, and I am not a Christian, and I must be.” Could the most trembling faith ask more than this?
I have just come from attending the funeral of a soldier of the 27th N. Y. regiment, who died last evening of typhoid fever. It was severely simple in all its accompaniments, only a little gathering in the hospital dining room, and a simple exercise; while a corporal’s guard were the only ones to attend the body to the grave, to hear the last sad words spoken. But in the very simplicity of it, and in the peculiar circumstances of those concerned, and especially from being the first time that I had ever officiated on such an occasion, it was to me very impressive. Had I not been here it is unlikely that he would have received a Christian burial.
. . . . Dr. Sheldon called me Mr. Woolsey this morning, and as long as that association of ideas continues I am sure of most excellent treatment.
October 1.—The Eighth regiment of New Jersey Volunteers, commanded by Col. ____ Johnston, left Trenton for Washington.—The Fifteenth regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteers, Colonel Christ, left Harrisburg for the seat of war. Previous to the regiment’s leaving, the regimental colors were presented by Governor Curtin, with an effective and patriotic address. Colonel Christ responded in an appropriate manner, and the affair passed off very enthusiastically.
—Melancthon S. Wade of Ohio, Lovell S. Rosseau of Kentucky, and Alvin Schoepf were appointed Brigadier-Generals in the Army of the United States.—General McClellan made a balloon reconnoissance, in the afternoon, from Munson’s Hill, in Virginia.
—Three Lieutenants attached to the United States ship Constellation, which recently arrived at the Portsmouth navy-yard, were sent to Fort Lafayette, they having refused to take the oath of allegiance. Their names are Benjamin P. Loyal, W. R. Butts, and Henry K. Stevens—the first two natives of Virginia.
—The United States gunboat Itaska was launched at Philadelphia, Pa.—Colonel Taylor, in command of the rebels at Springfield, Mo., issued a proclamation ordering all Union men who have borne arms in the Home Guard, to leave the country, or go into the Southern army for the same length of time as they had served against it. The proclamation also prohibits the carrying any more slaves South, as such a course is calculated to lessen the confidence of the people in the ability of the rebels to maintain themselves in Missouri.— (Doc. 62½.)
—This afternoon, a mile and a half beyond Edsall’s Hill, in Virginia, a slight skirmish occurred, in which a private of the New Jersey Third was killed and three were wounded. Surgeon Cox and eleven men had been out scouting, and encountered a rebel advance picket of one hundred men. Cox instantly cried, “Battalion, halt!” The rebels, thinking they were met by a superior force, broke and ran. Our small force, in returning, were suddenly confronted by another rebel guard, about eighty strong, and fired on with the result as above stated. The fire was returned with good effect, and each party then fell back.—N. Y. Tribune, Oct. 3.
—The gunboat Conestoga went down the Mississippi River within three miles of Columbus, Ky. She chased the rebel gunboat Jeff. Davis, obliging her to take shelter under cover of the rebel batteries on shore. It was ascertained that the Jeff. Davis had an armament of four six-pounders. The Conestoga found the rebel signal fires burning several miles above Columbus.
—Ai Warrenton, Virginia, died Col. Barlow Mason, late aid to Gen. Johnston, wounded at the battle of Manassas. He was brother to the Hon. James M. Mason, Captain Murray Mason, and others.
—Application having been made to the Government by R. B. Forbes, to have ” letters of marque” issued to the propeller Pembroke, about to sail for China, Secretary Welles, in a letter of this date, writes that Congress has not authorized the issue of such papers against the Confederate States, and that if it had done so it would have been an admission of what the Confederates assume—namely, that they are an independent nationality. But the Secretary also thinks that, under the second clause of the Act of Augusts, 1861, “letters permissive, under proper restrictions and guards against abuse, might be granted.”—(Doc. 63.)
—The Rev. Mr. Robinson, a Missionary teacher in the Cherokee nation, arrived at St. Louis, Mo., and reported that the Chief of that Nation finally succumbed to the secession pressure, and on August 21st called the Council together at Telequah and sent in a message recommending the severance of their connection with the United States and an alliance with the Southern Confederacy. The Council approved of the recommendation, and appointed Commissioners to make a treaty of alliance with the Southern Government. The Confederate Commissioner had assumed the payment of the annuities hitherto received by the. Cherokees from the National Government. The Creeks had raised one thousand men for service in the Confederate army, and the Cherokees formed a Home Guard of twelve hundred strong.— (Doc. 63½.)
—Col. St. George Cooke, of the Utah forces, arrived at St. Louis to-day. His regulars, six hundred strong, will reach Fort Leavenworth in three or four days.—St. Louis Republican, Oct. 2.
—At Hatteras Inlet the steamer Fanny, with stores for the United States Volunteers on the north coast, was captured by a party of Confederates in their armed steam-tugs. The Fanny was armed with two rifled brass guns, and had on board thirty-five men of the Ninth New York Volunteer regiment. Her crew were mostly civilians, and upon the appearance of the enemy, abandoned the vessel, and escaped in a small tout. The soldiers were taken prisoners by the rebels.—(Doc. 64.)
