October 17, 1861. Camp Tompkins, near New River, two and one-half miles above Gauley Bridge, at General Rosecrans’ Headquarters. — A threatening morning, a steady rain, fall fashion, in the afternoon. Received a letter by Mr. Schooley, dated 9th, from Lucy. Ruddy had been sick with a chill and Lucy not so well. Dear wife! She is troubled in her present trials that I am absent, but stoutly insists that she can bear up, that she is “a good soldier’s wife.” She sends me pants, etc., etc. A great many papers today in the court-martial line. Dr. Menzies called. Somewhat gloomy but not more so than is his wont.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Camp Tompkins, Near Gauley Bridge,
October 17, 1861.
Dearest: — I am practicing law again. My office is pleasantly located in a romantic valley on the premises of Colonel Tompkins of the Rebel army. His mansion is an elegant modern house, and by some strange good luck it has been occupied by his family and escaped uninjured while hundreds of humbler homes have been ruined. Mrs. Tompkins has kept on the good side of our leaders, and has thus far kept the property safe.
The Twenty-third is seven miles or so up the valley of New River. I was there last evening. Dr. Joe has been sick a couple of days but is getting well. Very few escape sickness, but with any sort of care it is not dangerous. Not more than one case in a hundred has thus far proved fatal.
Colonel Matthews has gone home for a few days. You will see him, I hope. If he succeeds in one of the objects of his trip, I shall probably visit you for a few days within six weeks or so.
Our campaign here is ended, I think without doubt. We hear stories which are repeated in your papers which look a little as if there might be an attempt to cut off our communications down the Kanawha, but 1 suspect there is very small foundation for them. We are strongly posted. No force would dare attack us. To cut off supplies is the most that will be thought of, and any attempts to do that must meet with little success, if I am rightly informed about things.
We have had the finest of fall weather for several (it seems many) days. The glorious mountains all around us are of every hue, changing to a deeper red and brown as the frosts cut the foliage. I talk so much of the scenery, you will suspect me to be daft. In fact I never have enjoyed nature so much. Being in the open air a great part of each day and surrounded by magnificent scenery, I do get heady I suspect on the subject. I have told you many a time that we were camped in the prettiest place you ever saw. I must here repeat it. The scenery on New River and around the junction of Gauley and New River where they form the Kanawha, is finer than any mere mountain and river views we saw last summer. The music and sights belonging to the camps of ten thousand men add to the effect.
Our band has improved and the choir in McIlrath’s Company would draw [an] audience anywhere. The companies, many of them, sound their calls with the bugle, which with the echoes heightens the general charm.
I wish you and the boys were over in the Tompkins house. How you would be happy and wouldn’t I? I do hope you will keep well, all of you. Kiss the little fellows all around and the big boy Birch too. Tell Webby the horse Webb is in excellent plight. I suppose “Birch” (the horse) has got home. Love to Grandma and all.
Affectionately,
R. B. Hayes.
Mrs. Hayes.
Thursday, 17th—Our daily routine in camp is as follows: Reveille at 4 a. m., breakfast call at 5, drill at 9 and dinner call at noon; drill call at 2 p. m., dress parade at 5, supper at 5:30, tattoo at 8 and taps at 9, when every man not on duty must be in his bunk and all lights out.
Thursday, October 17. — We passed the Capes about 10 A.M., running within two miles and a half of Cape Henry. This cape is composed of sand-hills shelving down to the beach, with nothing but a lighthouse and two small houses to be seen anywhere in the vicinity. The point is in possession of the rebels. We passed the gunboat Daylight keeping the blockade, and guarding the lightship. We saw a great many duck flying about us. About 12 we came in sight of the Rip Raps, and soon after of Fortress Monroe. The Rip Raps, a few miles off, look like a mass of stones dumped down in a heap, and on coming nearer to them, one finds that the opinion he formed of them at first sight was correct. They embrace perhaps an acre and a half to two acres, and are formed entirely of granite rocks dropped in utter disorder and confusion into the middle of Hampton Roads, and at about a mile and a half from Fortress Monroe. There are one or two small houses on it for laborers, but a more desolate hole I cannot imagine. The fortress itself cannot be seen until you are quite near it, on account of the shore being so low. We could see only two sides of it from the sea, the houses and trees on the shore hiding the rest of it. I saw the famous Sewall’s Point for the first time. The batteries are not visible, being on the other side of the point. The masts of our ships at Newport News could also be seen, some 8 miles distant. We left our ship, the Ocean Express, here, and turned round and started for Annapolis, where we were to take our troops on board. We steamed up the Chesapeake to within about 40 miles of Annapolis, and then anchored on account of the fog. We passed the mouth of the Potomac, and also those celebrated Points —
P’int Lookout, and P’int Lookin,
P’int no p’int, and p’int agin.
Letter from Captain Lyon to Mrs. Lyon.
“De Soto—October 17, 1861.
“We are forty miles from St. Louis, southwest, and just leaving for Pilot Knob, forty-two miles farther southwest. We are in ‘Secessia.’ Last night we slept on the ground with our arms by us. We had the whole regiment in line three times during the night, by reason of alarms. By reason of this practice we could form the line in three minutes. A bridge on a railroad we traveled on was burned on Monday by the rebels, and they had a little fight there with a small guard from the 11th Wisconsin, one killed on our side. I do not believe the enemy are near us in force. Where we go there will be four or five thousand troops when we get there.”
17th. Phoebe Haynes was in camp. Sang.
THURSDAY 17
This has been another rather sick day with me, but I have not had much fever. My cough continues bad, did not sleep at all last night. My cough and the moskeetoes took up all my attention, did not go out except to walk down to Charleys on 11th St and back. The “Military” seem to be doing very little. The Rebels have been allowed to construct Batteries on the Virginia side of the Potomac for some months past at their leisure, and the Potomac is now said to be “closed.” I think that something will have to be done.
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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.
Thursday, 17th.—Setting out from Raid Hill early in the. morning, our battalion soon caught up with the rear of the wagon train.
The road, which was already bad enough, was made still worse by its raining that day. Therefore the train moved very slowly, and “bringing up the rear” was quite an unpleasant job as well as a slow one. We camped for the night about where the head of the columns had bivouacked the night previous, only six miles from Bald Hill.
OCTOBER 17TH. —Hurlbut has been released from prison. Mr. Hunter has a letter (intercepted) from Raymond, editor of the New York Times, addressed to him since the battle of Manassas.
Mother to Eliza Woolsey Howland at Fishkill.
New York, Thursday, Oct. 17th.
My dear Eliza: I must write a line to you this afternoon, not only to congratulate you and dear Joe upon being together again in your own pleasant home but to tell you how charmed I am at the prospect of seeing you here. We began to pack up immediately on the receipt of our last letter from Washington and came down from Lenox as soon as possible, reaching home yesterday in time for a six o’clock dinner. I wrote to old William we were coming and he had everything very nice and clean. . . . Mary received our letter last night, telling her we should be in town, so that this morning the first thing, Georgy—who had gone right out to Mary —and Carry rushed in upon us, and right glad were we to see Georgy again, and to find her looking so well; not entirely grey-headed and wrinkled with age from the cares and anxieties of her Washington campaign, as we expected! but really looking better and certainly fatter, than when she left home. It is delightful to hear her account of things, and it will be very charming when you are here with us too, to join in the pow-wows. We are all eager listeners to Washington doings, and I cannot bear to be out of the room a minute while Georgy is talking. . . .
Do give my kind remembrance to Thomson and his wife; I have a great respect for him. I hope you will come to us as soon as you can. We shall be all ready for you, except the “nicknacks,” and I don’t mean to take any of them out. I found William had opened Joe’s likeness, and set it out, as a delicate little attention to the family! Hatty waits to take my note.
Ever affectionately yours,
Mother.
