Friday, 4th—The third all-day rain. Our regiment, the Eleventh Iowa, commenced to build their new barracks, located on the east side of the camp ground. Lieutenant Durbin arrived today.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Friday, 4th.—Gen. Zollicoffer ordered Colonel McNairy to go with his battalion on a reconnoitering expedition as far as London.
As soon as his men could prepare two days’ rations, McNairy set out from Camp Buckner about 10:30 A. M., and, after a ride of about forty miles, he drew rein a little after midnight, within two miles of London. Our advance guard, going on to that place, returned and reported no enemy there. We then took a nap of some two or three hours.
Camp Leslie, near Falls Church,
Fairfax County, Va., Oct. 4th, 1861.
Dear Friends at Home:—
I last wrote from Camp Corcoran and once before from Camp Casey, and you see by date we have moved again. The Colonel here presented us to McClellan as a well drilled regiment and asked the privilege of taking a position in the advance, which, I suppose, is granted. You have read of the taking of Hall’s Hill, in the late papers. Our camp is right there on the scene of the skirmish. Falls Church lies at the foot of the hill, to the southwest. We came here Wednesday last from Fort Corcoran. Munson’s, of which we have all heard so much, is two miles to our left on the southeast. Mr. Reed is with his regiment on the same hill; the rebel pickets are about a mile from Falls Church, so you see we are not far from them.
My time is so limited that you must not wait for me to answer each letter individually, but I must write to all at once and hope each will write in return. I did not think you had forgotten me, but I have been five weeks from home and not a letter till to-day. I have been anxious to hear, full as much so as you, I presume. I hope you will write very often. The last letter I sent I did not pay the postage, because I could not. We can get no stamps here, and no one will take charge of postage not in stamps, so the letters have to be franked by the Major and sent on. I wish you could send a few stamps. My money is all gone, and although pay is due us now, I can’t tell when we will get it.
General McClellan and his staff, General McDowell, General Porter, Prince de Joinville, Due de Chartres and other notables visited us last night. They stayed only a short time. I heard McClellan remark as he rode up, “There, those boys haven’t got their pants yet. That’s a shame.”
H. and I were selected as two of twenty from the regiment to go forward and lay out this camp. Lieutenant Wilson commanded. We lost our way and went some two or three miles to the right and beyond our camps, finally coming out right. The timber here is mostly small, scrub oaks, etc. In the woods near us we found any quantity of grapes and chinquapins (a small nut in a burr like a chestnut and tasting much like it). Chestnuts are ripe and plenty.
We are in Secessia and the meanest part of it, too, and anything the boys can forage they consider as theirs. A field of potatoes, five acres, was emptied of its contents in short order. H. and I got enough for a mess, and some parsnips. You ought to see us clean out the fences. The rails answer first-rate to boil our rations, and they have to do it. The country between here and Washington is in a sorry condition, the fences all burnt up, the houses deserted, the crops annihilated, and everything showing the footprints of war.
Virginia has acted meaner than South Carolina even, and I go for teaching her a lesson that she will remember. It will take years to recover from this blow.
We are very severely drilled and are improving fast. We are ordered to shoot any one who does not halt on being three times ordered to do so. I was on last night, and in four hours I think I challenged over fifty men. Our officers take every way to prove and try us, to accustom us to tricks, I suppose.
You need not envy us much our vegetables. They seem to be a failure. Our cooks don’t know how to cook them and no one likes them. Persimmons are ripening now and they are delicious. . . .
Direct care Captain A., Colonel J. W. McLane’s Regiment, Camp Leslie, Washington, D. C. . . .
OCTOBER 4TH.—Sundry applications were made to-day to leave the country under flag of truce, provided I would not permit the names to be published. The reason for this request is that these persons have connections here who might be compromised. I refused compliance. In one or two instances they intimated that they would not have their names published for thousands of dollars. My response to this was such as to cause them to withdraw their applications.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1861.
Another hot day. Much as yesterday “danced attendance” at the Treasury most of the day without seeing the Sec’y. It has been Cabinet day and he much engaged. Think some of getting a room for compounding various medicines and articles for sale with the assistance of Chas — Must do something to make some money, if possible. Julia has been out to the Camp of the “Anderson Zouaves” with Capt Mew. Prof Low[e]s Balloon was high up over “Dixey” this evening. Heavy guns have been frequently heard over the River.
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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.
October 4.—The Federal forces to the number of four hundred occupied Pohick church, sixteen miles from Alexandria, on the Fairfax road, Virginia. A force of rebel cavalry, which had held the place, retired hastily with the loss of several wounded. A reconnoissance was then made toward Occoquan, during which important discoveries were made.
—A balloon was seen passing over Washington, and it was thought by many to have started from the rebel camp, on an aerial reconnoissance; but as it subsequently descended in Maryland it proved to be the air ship of La Mountain, which had ascended from the Union camp of the Potomac. It appears that when La Mountain rose to a certain distance he cut the rope which connected his balloon with the earth, regardless of the danger, and soared up to an elevation of a mile and a half, and got directly over the rebel lines. Here he was enabled to make a perfect observation of their position and all their movements, the results of which he has communicated to head-quarters, and which are said to be of the utmost importance. When La Mountain completed his observation, he threw out sufficient ballast to enable him to rise to a height of three miles, when befell in with a counter current which carried him back in the direction of Maryland, thus passing over Washington.
—Commander Alden, of United States steamer South Carolina, reports to Flag-officer McKean, Gulf Squadron, the capture of two schooners off the Southwest Pass of the Mississippi, with from four to five thousand stand of arms.—(Doc. 68.)
—A party of New Mexican Union volunteers, under Captain Mink, was surprised at Alimosa, thirty-five miles below Fort Craig, by one hundred and ten Texan rebels, and their horses stampeded. Captain Mink proposed to surrender his company; but his men dissented, secured their horses, and retreated to Fort Craig. Subsequently about one hundred United States troops, from Fort Craig, pursued the rebels, overtook them, killed their captain and ten men, wounded about thirty, and killed thirty horses. The balance of the Texans escaped to Mesilin.
October 4th.—The new expedition, of which I have been hearing for some time past, is about to sail to Port Royal, under the command of General Burnside, in order to reduce the works erected at the entrance of the Sound, to secure a base of operations against Charleston, and to cut in upon the communication between that place and Savannah. Alas, for poor Trescot! his plantations, his secluded home! What will the good lady think of the Yankee invasion, which surely must succeed, as the naval force will be overwhelming? I visited the division of General Egbert Viele, encamped near the Navy-yard, which is bound to Annapolis, as a part of General Burnside’s expedition. When first I saw him, the general was an emeritus captain, attached to the 7th New York Militia; now he is a Brigadier-General, if not something more, commanding a corps of nearly 5000 men, with pay and allowances to match. His good lady wife, who accompanied him in the Mexican campaign, —whereof came a book, lively and light, as a lady’s should be,—was about to accompany her husband in his assault on the Carolinians, and prepared for action, by opening a small broadside on my unhappy self, whom she regarded as an enemy of our glorious Union; and therefore an ally of the Evil Powers on both sides of the grave. The women, North and South, are equally pitiless to their enemies; and it was but the other day, a man with whom I am on very good terms in Washington, made an apology for not asking me to his house, because his wife was a strong Union woman. A gentleman who had been dining with Mr. Seward to-night told me the Minister had complained that I had not been near him for nearly two months; the fact was, however, that I had called twice immediately after the appearance in America of my letter dated July 22nd, and had met Mr. Seward afterwards, when his manner was, or appeared to me to be, cold and distant, and I had therefore abstained from intruding myself upon his notice; nor did his answer to the Philadelphian petition—in which Mr. Seward appeared to admit the allegations made against me were true, and to consider I had violated the hospitality accorded me—induce me to think that he did not entertain the opinion which these journals which set themselves up to be his organs had so repeatedly expressed.
