October 11, Camp Ewing. — Wet, cold. We hear of enemy back at Camp Lookout and rumors of, over New River. On this road are many deserted homes — great Virginia taverns wasted. The people are for the most part a helpless and harmless race. Some Massachusetts people have come in and made pleasant homes. We are on a turnpike leading up the Kanawha to White Sulphur Springs and so on to eastern Virginia.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Friday, 11th—My company, E, has ninety-seven men. They are of several different nationalities, as follows: Three from Canada, four from Ireland, two from England, two from Germany, and one from France; the rest are American-born, as follows: Twenty-three from Ohio, twenty-one from Pennsylvania, sixteen from New York, eight from Indiana, six from Iowa, two each from Michigan and Vermont, and one each from Maryland and Maine. The average age is less than twenty years, and there are eight married men.
11th. Rainy and unpleasant in the morning. Cleared up rather cold in the afternoon. Fannie, Libbie, and Fannie Hudson came to camp. So surprised, but glad.
FRIDAY 11
Succeeded today in seeing the Sec’y of the Treasury after geting a card from the Prests private Sec’y, Mr Hay. But the interview was of little account. I called upon Mrs Lincoln this evening with Julia and had quite a long conversation with her. She was quite indignant that I had not been restored to office. The Pensacola left the Navy Yard last evening and droped down to Alexandria where she now lies. Troops are moveing about & “big things” are expected.
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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 11th.—Mr. Mure, who has arrived here in wretched health from New Orleans, after a protracted and very unpleasant journey through country swarming with troops mixed with guerillas, tells me that I am more detested in New Orleans than I am in New York. This is ever the fate of the neutral, if the belligerents can get him between them. The Girondins and men of the juste milieu are ever fated to be ground to powder. The charges against me were disposed of by Mr. Mure, who says that what I wrote of in New Orleans was true, and has shown it to be so in his correspondence with the Governor, but, over and beyond that, I am disliked, because I do not praise the peculiar institution. He amused me by adding that the mayor of Jackson, with whom I sojourned, had published “a card,” denying point blank that he had ever breathed a word to indicate that the good citizens around him were not famous for the love of law, order, and life, and a scrupulous regard to personal liberty. I can easily fancy Jackson is not a place where a mayor suspected by the citizens would be exempted from difficulties now and then; and if this disclaimer does my friend any good, he is very heartily welcome to it and more. I have received several letters lately from the parents of minors, asking me to assist them in getting back their sons, who have enlisted illegally in the Federal army. My writ does not run any further than a Federal judge’s.
11th.—Sent off ambulances to-day to commence bringing forward the sick of my regiment, and whilst they were gone, after having put my hospital in good order for their reception, I stepped over again to Commodore Jones’ house to see how the guards stationed there had succeeded in carrying out their orders. Till I entered the house, I thought I had seen evidences of extreme vandalism, but the wanton destruction here beggars everything I have before witnessed. Furniture broken; feather beds opened, and their contents emptied over house and yard; even those beautiful family pictures were ground to atoms and thrown to the winds. But I need not describe here, for the impression is deeply stamped in memory, more durable and more accurate than words and letters can ever make. Everything destructable was destroyed. [1]
In handling over the papers I picked up the Commodore’s “Journal of a cruise in the U. S. ship Relief—bearing the broad pennant of Commodore Jones—Thos. A. Downer, Esq., Commander,” which I have preserved, and also a letter from a son of Commodore Tatnall (late of the rebel Merrimac) to Commodore Jones, written from the Meditterranean, asking to be relieved from duty there, and to be permitted to return to America.[2]
As it will be a matter of interest to me, in future, to study my predictions as to the course and conduct of this war—to rejoice and be vain over those which prove correct, and to laugh at or be ashamed of those which prove false, I shall continue to record them as I have begun; and here I enter one in which I hope to take interest a long time hence. As I have constantly predicted, we have had no fight here nor shall we have; and I now very much doubt whether we shall have a fight even at Manassas, and for this reason: “After all the feints of the enemy here to draw Gen. Banks from Harper’s Ferry had failed, they, seeing that we have got foot-hold in North Carolina, will fall back on their fortifications at Centerville and Manassas, and then presenting a bold front with a small body, will cover the withdrawal of the larger part of their force, which they will distribute in Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee and Western Virginia, and I very much doubt whether they will retain enough at Manassas to make a respectable fight. Kentucky and Tennessee are to become the theatre of war; and if I am not greatly mistaken, Kentucky will have trying times between this and the first of January. I hope that Gen. McClellan is taking the same view of things, and is preparing to meet it.” What I have here marked as a quotation is a copied from a letter this day written to a friend on the prospects of the war.
[1] It is worthy of remark here, that thus whilst this wanton destruction was going on, a half a mile away, everything on the place of Mr. Johnson, (a loyalist, whose house and garden were in the very midst of the encampments,) though unguarded was unmolested ; every article he had to dispose of was bought and paid for, at high prices, by the soldiers. Even thus early could we read the soldier’s aversion to guarding, or having guarded the property of rebels.
[2] This letter I handed to a lady connection of the Tatnall family, who was with me at the time, and she found means of restoring it to them.
OCTOBER 11TH.—And Wise has had bloody fighting with Rosecrans in Western Virginia. He can beat the enemy at fighting; but they beat him at manœuvring, with the use of the guides Gen. Winder has sent them from our prisons here.
11th.—Every thing apparently quiet, and we, in the absence of bad news, are surrounded by a most peaceful and pleasant atmosphere. Our communication with the outer world cut off by the freshet in the Shenandoah, so that we had no mail yesterday. Mr. _____ has gone to Richmond on business. He wrote from Culpeper CourtHouse, at which place he stopped to see J., a most pleasing account of the hospitals, and the care taken of the sick.
October 11.—The Confederate steamer Nashville, commanded by Lieutenant Pegram, successfully ran the blockade at Charleston, South Carolina.—The rebel Government having released and sent home fifty-seven prisoners, the National authorities ordered the release of an equal number of Confederate prisoners.—Baltimore American, October 16.
—An unsuccessful attempt to seize the steamboats Horizon and Izetta, plying on the Kanawha River, was made by the rebels.—(Doc. 76.)
—The New Orleans Picayune, of this day, contains the following: We have been permitted by Gen. Twiggs to see and to copy a telegraph despatch received by him to-day from Hon. J. P. Benjamin, Acting Secretary of War, dated at Richmond, on the 9th instant: ” Gen. D. E. Twiggs:
“Your despatch is received. The department learns with regret that the state of your health is such as to cause you to request to be relieved from active duty.
Your request is granted; but yon are expected to remain in command until the arrival of Gen. Mansfield Lovell, who has been appointed to succeed you, and who leaves for New Orleans to-morrow. J. P. Benjamin.”
—The Platte River bridge, near St. Joseph’s, was burned, and they are now obliged to cross in small boats and on rafts. Fifteen hundred regulars from Utah crossed this night, and many of them with their families. Being so many of them, some were obliged to cross on the rafts. They had ropes across the river, and these on the raft took hold of the end and polled, and it drew them across; but some one —a secessionist, they think—had cut the rope, and when they were about in the middle of the river it gave way and they floated down stream a short distance, and the raft hit against a tree and turned them all over, drowning a wife and only child of one man, three only children of another family, and a babe of eleven months old of another family. The bodies have not yet been recovered from among the rubbish. It was very dark, and they were obliged to come along and leave them. Some spoke not a word, but looked heart-broken; others mourning for a loved wife or children. Oh! it was a sight to melt a heart of stone.—Baltimore American, October 21.
—Lieut. Harrell, commanding the steamer Union, of the Potomac flotilla, stationed at the month of Acquia Creek, learning that the rebels had fitted out a large schooner in Quantico or Dumfries Creek, and had collected a considerable body of troops there, with the intention of crossing the Potomac, determined that the schooner should be destroyed. He accordingly organized an expedition, and with one boat and two launches entered the mouth of the creek about half-past two o’clock this morning. The schooner was discovered some distance up, in charge of a single sentry, who fled and gave the alarm. She was immediately boarded and set on fire, and when her destruction was rendered certain, Lieut. Harrell’s men returned to their boats and pulled again for the steamer. Their position was fully revealed by the light of the burning schooner, and they were fired upon continuously from both banks of the narrow stream; but not one of them was injured, though their clothing in many instances was perforated with bullets. The success of the enterprise was complete.—(Doc. 76.)
—The Brickel Battery N. Y. S. V., under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Andrew Brickel, left New York for the seat of war.
—The New Orleans Picayune of this day contains the following: “Yesterday was the first day for the execution of the Governor’s orders in regard to passports. Hereafter, persons wishing to leave the city, either by steamer or by railroad train, will be obliged to provide themselves with a passport, for which application must be made at the Governor’s office, between the hours of nine and three o’clock. Persons residing on the line of the Jackson Railroad, and whose business requires them to travel frequently, can obtain a monthly passport, on application to Mr. T. S. Williams, the General Superintendent. Military officers will accompany each train, and all travellers detected without the requisite pass will be arrested and brought back to the city.”
—The Missouri State Convention met at St. Louis. A resolution was introduced directing inquiry into the expediency of confiscating all the property of these engaged in or abetting the rebellion, and appropriating the proceeds to reimbursing loyal men for the losses they have sustained in maintaining the National or State Governments. Final action was not taken, but the convention, by a majority of four, refused to reject the resolution.—St. Louis Republican, October 12.
