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

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Post image for Army rations.–Alexander G. Downing.

Army rations.–Alexander G. Downing.

December 13, 2011

Diary of Alexander G. Downing; Company E, Eleventh Iowa Infantry,The American Civil War

Friday, 13th—The Eleventh Iowa is at home now in wedge tents, with four men to a tent, and we are experiencing more changes in living. Irish potatoes have been dropped from our rations and we have no tables now at which to eat our meals. When the orderly sergeant draws the rations, the company cook calls out for every man to come and get his portion—of hardtack, bacon, sugar, salt, pepper, soap and candles. The cook makes the coffee, boils the beans and salt beef (fresh beef twice a week), and at noon calls each man to get his day’s rations of bean soup and meat. The coffee he makes three times a day, each man having his own tin cup for his coffee. Each one prepares his own bacon to suit his taste, many eating it raw between two pieces of hard-tack. Every one has his own plate, knife and fork.

Our regiment received marching orders with ten days’ rations, and so we have to leave just as we were getting settled in our tent camp.

Post image for “It is singular how still a half million of soldiers can keep.”—Horatio Nelson Taft

“It is singular how still a half million of soldiers can keep.”—Horatio Nelson Taft

December 13, 2011

Diary of US patent clerk Horatio Nelson Taft.

FRIDAY 13

Another fine cool day, just comfortable with a fire. Was in the office all day. Prof Sparks called upon me and spent sometime. Mr Daws M.C. also brot a Mr Eldridge to me (from Williamstown) to me, who also had a letter of introduction from C R Taft. He is here after office. Think he will have a “hard road to travel.” I have been at work this evening and made a wash bench for the Kitchen. I have plenty of tools and like the exercise. There is no particular war news. It is singular how still a half million of soldiers can keep. But they are all in the field.

______

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 cannot bring the South back.”–Insult to England–Adams Family Letters, Henry Adams, private secretary of the US Minister to the UK, to his brother, Charles.

“We cannot bring the South back.”–Insult to England–Adams Family Letters, Henry Adams, private secretary of the US Minister to the UK, to his brother, Charles.

December 13, 2011

Adams Family Civil War letters; US Minister to the UK and his sons.,The American Civil War

London, December 13, 1861

Your letter to papa announcing your metamorphosis took us as you may suppose a good deal by surprise. I endorsed it at once. As you say, one of us ought to go, and though of the three as a mere matter of accidental position I might have preferred that it should be John, still, as a question of greater or lesser evil perhaps it’s best that it should be you. If we come home, perhaps I may try it myself a little, but if we stay abroad, or if I come home alone, I do not suppose I shall be compelled to do so. At the same time, as a personal matter, I’m sorry you’re going, especially as I have, since the last shock, become satisfied that we must sooner or later yield the matter. As a mere question of independence I believe the thing to be settled. We cannot bring the South back. As a question of terms and as a means of thoroughly shaking the whole southern system, I ‘m not sorry to see the pressure kept up. . . .

 

You can imagine our existence here. Angry and hateful, as I am of Great Britain, I still can’t help laughing and cursing at the same time as I see the accounts of the talk of our people. What a bloody set of fools they are! How in the name of all that’s conceivable could you suppose that England would sit quiet under such an insult. We should have jumped out of our boots at such a one. And there’s Judge Bigelow parading bad law “at the cannon’s mouth,” and Governor Andrew all cock-a-hoop, and Dana so unaccustomed confident, and Mr. Everett following that “Great authority” George Sumner into a ditch, “blind leader of the blind “! Good God, what’s got into you all? What do you mean by deserting now the great principles of our fathers, by returning to the vomit of that dog Great Britain? What do you mean by asserting now principles against which every Adams yet has protested and resisted? You’re mad, all of you. It’s pitiable to see such idiocy in a nation. There’s the New York Times which I warned only in my last letter against such an act, and its consequences; and now I find the passage erased, and editorial assurances that war was impossible on such grounds. Egad, who knew best, Raymond or I? War is not only possible but inevitable on that ground; and we shall be forced to declare it. England can compel us to appear to act as the aggressors in future as now.

 

Thurlow Weed is here and hard at work on public opinion. He is excessively anxious about the meeting of Congress and thinks we shall be talked into a war. I have had some talk with him and like him very much. . . . The Government has not yet condescended to send us one single word as to the present question. I wonder what Seward supposes a Minister can do or is put here for, if he is n’t to know what to do or to say. It makes papa’s position here very embarrassing. . . .

Post image for Rebel War Clerk

Rebel War Clerk

December 13, 2011

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

December 13th.—One of the papers has a short account of the application of Stone in its columns this morning. One of the reporters was present at the interview. The article bore pretty severely upon the assumption of power by the military commander of the department. Gen. Winder came in during the day, and denied having promised to procure a passport for Stone from Gen. Huger.

Post image for A Diary of American Events.

A Diary of American Events.

December 13, 2011

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

December 13.—Major Williams of the Third Kansas regiment, made a dash into Missouri from Mound City, and burned the villages of Papinsville and Butler, (the latter is the county seat of Bates County,) and returned with a large number of refugees, quantities of stock, &c. They had two men killed at Butler. These towns had for a long time been the resort of a guerilla band of rebels.

—This day one of the hardest battles of the war was fought at Allegheny Camp, Pocahontas County, Virginia, between Gen. R. H. Milroy, commanding the Union troops, and Gen. Johnson, of Georgia, commanding the rebels. The fight lasted from daylight till three P. M. The Union loss is about thirty, and the rebel loss over two hundred, including a major and many other officers, and thirty prisoners. Gen. Johnson was shot in the mouth, but not fatally. The Twelfth Georgia regiment suffered the most. Gen. Milroy’s force numbered seven hundred and fifty men from the Ninth and Thirteenth Indiana, and the Twenty-fifth and Thirty-second Ohio and the Second Virginia. Gen. Johnson’s force numbered over two thousand men. The Ninth Indiana regiment fought bravely to the last. After driving the enemy into their barracks no less than five times, the Nationals retired in good order. The rebels set fire to their camp and retreated to Staunton. —(Doc. 226.)

—Wm. H. Johnson, of the Lincoln Cavalry, sentenced to be shot as a deserter, was executed to-day. According to his own confession, he enlisted in order to desert, that he might thus reach New Orleans where his mother resides. In carrying out his plan, he got beyond the lines, but mistaking the Federal pickets for these of the enemy, he ran towards them, throwing up his hands and crying that he was a deserter. They assured him that they belonged to “the other side,” took his arms, and said that he must prove his good faith by giving information. Thereupon, he told them that they could capture a party of our men, behind a hill, where they really were, and gave abundant details touching the Nationals strength and position. He was then taken prisoner, and carried within the National lines.

—The British ship Admiral was captured off Savannah, Ga., by the Augusta, while attempting to run in. She adopted a very ingenious mode to escape the scrutiny of the cruisers, by pretending to be one of the stone fleet, into which she had forced herself. But the ruse did not succeed, and the commander of the Augusta, becoming suspicious, ran down to her, and sent her boat aboard. She proved to be an English ship, deeply loaded with coal, for blacksmith’s purposes, and salt—at least that is what appears upon the surface. What lies hidden under this valuable cargo, remains to be seen when an examination is made. The captain of the Admiral stated that he had sailed eighty days ago from Liverpool for Savannah, and was not aware of the existence of blockade.—N. Y Herald, Dec. 20.

—Governor Clairborne F. Jackson, of Missouri, issued a proclamation at New Madrid, to the officers and soldiers of the Missouri State Guard, praising their valor, fortitude, and success, and urging them to continue in the ranks a few weeks longer, their six months’ term of service having expired. He also called upon these of his fellow-citizens who had not joined the army, to do so at once, telling them they should not expect to enjoy the reward, unless they participate in the struggle for victory and independence.—(Doc. 227.)

Post image for Three Years in the Confederate Horse Artillery — George Michael Neese.

Three Years in the Confederate Horse Artillery — George Michael Neese.

December 13, 2011

Three Years in the Confederate Horse Artillery — George Michael Neese.

December 13 — This morning I bade farewell to my militia comrades, took the stage at the fair ground, and came to Martinsburg. James H. Williams, who is recruiting for the battery and who induced me to join it, came with me. I arrived in Martinsburg this afternoon, and at once came to the camp of the company, which is near the railroad shops. Everything is strange to me, town, country, people, officers, and not a man in the company that I have ever seen or heard of before.

I had an introduction to Captain Chew, who is sick in his tent, but from the little conversation that I had with him, and from the soldier-like appearance of his environments and his gentlemanly deportment, together with the courteous welcome he gave me as a stranger to his command, I am almost convinced already that what I have done to-day will in the end prove to have been a prudent act, as I will be under the immediate command of one who has studied the art of war.

R. P. Chew is from Jefferson County, a young man, and a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute, the latter fact being the great incentive that induced me to join a company of entire strangers.

The principal part of the men in the company are from Jefferson County, with a few members from Loudoun and Berkeley counties.