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

Friday, June 1, 2012

Post image for Diary of David L. Day.

Diary of David L. Day.

June 1, 2012

David L Day–My diary of rambles with the 25th Mass

A Change of Base.

June 1. And now something else has turned up, and here we are encamped just outside the city and behind our batteries. The order to move took us by surprise, as the first notice we had was to pick up our traps and be ready to march in half an hour. At the time appointed everything was packed and loaded on the wagons and we were on the march. Dark found us here with our tents up ready for housekeeping, and our coffee boiling for supper. All this and a march of twelve miles in one afternoon. Two companies, G and K, are left back for a few days, and are assisted by cavalry. All the advance regiments are drawn in behind the forts and the whole division, with the exception of three regiments, are now here. I have heard no reason why the division is concentrated, but perhaps the general expects company and intends to be in readiness to give them a right royal reception. Our line of defenses extends from the Neuse to the Trent rivers, a distance of about one mile, and on the line are three forts mounting in all 32 guns. There are also eleven light batteries of six guns each, with gunboats on the rivers that have an enfilading range in front of the line. With 10,000 troops behind the works, with a wide open field in front, it looks as though our position was a pretty safe one, and if anybody comes here with any hostile intent, hell will begin to fill up pretty soon after they get within the range of our guns. Our life up in the woods, on the whole was rather a pleasant one; I reckon the boys rather enjoyed it and were in no hurry about leaving. There was less restraint on them, they could do a little more as they pleased and were free from the drills, parades, red tape and formalities of the regular camp, with just enough excitement about it to keep them from getting dreary and homesick.

Diary and Letters of Rutherford B. Hayes.

June 1, 2012

Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes

Flat Top, June 1, 1862. Sunday. — We got our new rifled muskets this morning. They are mostly old muskets, many of them used, altered from flint-lock to percussion, rifled by Greenwood at Cincinnati. We tried them on the hill one and a half miles east of camp, spending three hours shooting. At two hundred yards about one shot in eight would have hit a man; at four hundred yards, or a quarter of a mile, about one shot in ten would have hit; at one-third to one-half mile, say seven hundred yards, about one shot in eighty would have hit. The shooting was not remarkably accurate, but the power of the gun was fully as great as represented. The ball at one-fourth mile passed through the largest rails; at one-half mile almost the same. The hissing of the ball indicates its force and velocity. I think it an excellent arm.

Companies B and G went out to Packs Ferry to aid in building or guarding a boat, built to cross New River

Union soldiers getting into position behind their weapons ready for an attack.

June 1, 2012

Library of Congress

Union soldiers getting into position behind their weapons ready for an attack

Fort Sumner, near Fair Oaks, Va.,Union soldiers getting into position behind their weapons ready for an attack while infantry men line up in the distance by the Chickahominy River, June, 1862.  (Info from corresponding stereograph print)

  • Photograph from the main eastern theater of war, the Peninsular Campaign
  • Civil War photographs, 1861-1865 / compiled by Hirst D. Milhollen and Donald H. Mugridge, Washington, D.C. : Library of Congress, 1977. No. 0067
  • Title from Milhollen and Mugridge.Civil War glass negative collection.  Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

    Record page for this image:  http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/cwp2003000074/PP/

Post image for Kate Cumming: A Journal of Hospital Life in the Confederate Army of Tennessee.

Kate Cumming: A Journal of Hospital Life in the Confederate Army of Tennessee.

June 1, 2012

Kate Cumming: A Journal of Hospital Life in the Confederate Army of Tennessee.

June 1.—Mr. Miller called early this morning, and informed me that Mrs. Ogden and the ladies were in a car at the depot. I went down immediately. They were not there, but the sick and wounded were, whom I had seen taken off the cars last night. I asked if there were none to care for them. I was informed that there was no one, and that they had not even had a drink of water. The sun was shining directly upon some of them. An immense train of cars was on the road. I went further down, with the hope of finding Mrs. O., and at almost every step I saw sick and wounded men lying all over the ground. I came up to a group of officers who were having their breakfast cooked. I asked them if they could tell me what this meant. They replied that they had left Corinth in such a hurry that it could not be avoided. I told them that I thought it could, and that the doctors were to blame. To this they made no reply. Perhaps they were doctors, and I do not care if they were.

I at last came up with Mrs. O. and her party. They were almost starving; they had been three days on the cars. Mrs. Woodall sent them some coffee. They were on the way to some place in Alabama. I was introduced to Dr. Childs from Mobile, and several others, but do not recollect their names.

Dr. Hughes has brought his wounded friends up here. Both are very young men, named Curly and Oliver. Mr. C. is badly wounded in the foot, and Mr. O. has lost one of his. Both were wounded by the same shell, while sitting talking to each other, the day before Corinth was evacuated. They are members of Lucas’s Battery, Price’s army.

Mrs. T. was busy last night until 12 o’clock, cooking for the starving soldiers who come begging her for food. This morning she sent her two little boys around the country, requesting the citizens to send in food to the car-loads of men who were at the depot. She then made soup and other things, which she carried to them herself.

I went to church this morning. Service was held in a warehouse belonging to Judge T., as every church in the place has been taken for hospitals. I heard a very good sermon from a Baptist preacher.

Post image for A Diary of American Events.

A Diary of American Events.

June 1, 2012

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

June 1.—At eight o’clock this morning the battle between the Union and rebel forces at Fair Oaks, Va., was resumed, and the rebels were defeated and compelled to fall back upon Richmond. —(Docs. 17 and 92.)

—General Fremont’s advance brigade, under Colonel Cluseret, occupied Strasburgh without resistance. A midnight reconnoissance three miles beyond Strasburgh came upon a rope barricade and ambush of Jackson’s rear-guard, and retired successfully with the loss of only three wounded. Col. Figyelmesy, of Gen. Fremont’s staff, with only fifteen men, brilliantly charged and put to flight a body of cavalry commanded by Ashby in person.

—The expedition sent out by General Pope on the twenty-eighth of June, under Colonel Elliott, with the Second Ohio cavalry, returned to Corinth, Mississippi, this day. By forced marches they reached the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, and although the rebels were guarding it with a force of five thousand infantry running up and down to prevent him reaching it, succeeded in destroying the track in many places, blowing up one ci[illegible]ert, burning the depot, locomotives, and a train of twenty-six cars loaded with supplies, destroying ten thousand stand of small arms, three pieces of artillery, and capturing two thousand prisoners, whom he released on parole, as he had not time to march them with his cavalry.—(Docs. 49 and 76.)

—The fortifications at Pig Point, Va., were destroyed to-day, together with the rebel barracks in the vicinity.—An order was issued from the War Department extending the Department of Virginia to include that part of Virginia south of the Rappahannock and east of the railroad from Fredericksburgh to Richmond, Petersburgh, and Weldon, under command of Major-Gen. McClellan. Major-Gen. Wool was assigned to the command of the Middle Department, and Major-Gen. Dix to Fortress Monroe to assume command at that point, reporting to Gen. McClellan for orders.

—Yesterday the Union forces under command of Brig.-Gen. Wright succeeded in crossing from Edisto Island to Seabrook’s Point, S. C, and today they had a skirmish with the rebel pickets in the vicinity, which resulted in the retreat of the rebels.—Official Report.

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