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

Thursday, July 12, 2012

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Homeless and Shelterless

July 12, 2012

War Diary of a Union Woman in the South by Dora Richards Miller

Saturday, July 12, 1862. (Under a cotton-shed on the bank of the Mississippi River.)—Thursday was a lovely day, and the sight of the broad river exhilarating. The negroes launched and reloaded the boat, and when we had paid them and spoken good-bye to them we felt we were really off. Every one had said that if we kept in the current the boat would almost go of itself, but in fact the current seemed to throw it about, and hard pulling was necessary. The heat of the sun was very severe, and it proved impossible to use an umbrella or any kind of shade, as it made steering more difficult. Snags and floating timbers were very troublesome. Twice we hurried up to the bank out of the way of passing gunboats, but they took no notice of us. When we got thirsty, it was found that Max had set the jug of water in the shade of a tree and left it there. We must dip up the river water or go without. When it got too dark to travel safely we disembarked. Reeney gathered wood, made a fire and some tea, and we had a good supper. We then divided, H. and I remaining to watch the boat, Max and Annie on shore. She hung up a mosquito-bar to the trees and went to bed comfortably. In the boat the mosquitoes were horrible, but I fell asleep and slept till voices on the bank woke me. Annie was wandering disconsolate round her bed, and when I asked the trouble, said, “Oh, I can’t sleep there! I found a toad and a lizard in the bed.” When dropping off again, H. woke me to say he was very sick; he thought it was from drinking the river water. With difficulty I got a trunk opened to find some medicine. While doing so a gunboat loomed up vast and gloomy, and we gave each other a good fright. Our voices doubtless reached her, for instantly every one of her lights disappeared and she ran for a few minutes along the opposite bank. We momently expected a shell as a feeler.

At dawn next morning we made coffee and a hasty breakfast, fixed up as well as we could in our sylvan dressing-rooms, and pushed on, for it is settled that traveling between eleven and two will have to be given up unless we want to be roasted alive. H. grew worse. He suffered terribly, and the rest of us as much to see him pulling in such a state of exhaustion. Max would not trust either of us to steer. About eleven we reached the landing of a plantation. Max walked up to the house and returned with the owner, an old gentleman living alone with his slaves. The housekeeper, a young colored girl, could not be surpassed in her graceful efforts to make us comfortable and anticipate every want. I was so anxious about H. that I remember nothing except that the cold drinking-water taken from a cistern beneath the building, into which only the winter rains were allowed to fall, was like an elixir. They offered luscious peaches that, with such water, were nectar and ambrosia to our parched lips. At night the housekeeper said she was sorry they had no mosquito-bars ready and hoped the mosquitoes would not be thick, but they came out in legions. I knew that on sleep that night depended recovery or illness for H. and all possibility of proceeding next day. So I sat up fanning away mosquitoes that he might sleep, toppling over now and then on the pillows till roused by his stirring. I contrived to keep this up till, as the chill before dawn came, they abated and I got a short sleep. Then, with the aid of cold water, a fresh toilet, and a good breakfast, I braced up for another day’s baking in the boat.

[If I had been well and strong as usual the discomforts of such a journey would not have seemed so much to me; but I was still weak from the effects of the fever, and annoyed by a worrying toothache which there had been no dentist to rid me of in our village.]¹

Having paid and dismissed the boat’s watchman, we started and traveled till eleven to-day, when we stopped at this cotton-shed. When our dais was spread and lunch laid out in the cool breeze, it seemed a blessed spot. A good many negroes came offering chickens and milk in exchange for tobacco, which we had not. We bought some milk with money.

A United States transport just now steamed by and the men on the guards cheered and waved to us. We all replied but Annie. Even Max was surprised into an answering cheer, and I waved my handkerchief with a very full heart as the dear old flag we have not seen for so long floated by; but Annie turned her back.

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¹ Restored omission

Note: To protect Mrs. Miller’s job as a teacher in New Orleans, the diary was published anonymously, edited by G. W. Cable, names were changed and initials were often used instead of full names — and even the initials differed from the real person’s initials.
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A Diary From Dixie

July 12, 2012

A Diary From Dixie by Mary Boykin Miller Chesnut.

July 12th.—At McMahan’s our small colonel, Paul Hayne’s son, came into my room. To amuse the child I gave him a photograph album to look over. “You have Lincoln in your book!” said he. “I am astonished at you. I hate him!” And he placed the book on the floor and struck Old Abe in the face with his fist.

An Englishman told me Lincoln has said that had he known such a war would follow his election he never would have set foot in Washington, nor have been inaugurated. He had never dreamed of this awful fratricidal bloodshed. That does not seem like the true John Brown spirit. I was very glad to hear it—to hear something from the President of the United States which was not merely a vulgar joke, and usually a joke so vulgar that you were ashamed to laugh, funny though it was. They say Seward has gone to England and his wily tongue will turn all hearts against us.

Browne told us there was a son of the Duke of Somerset in Richmond. He laughed his fill at our ragged, dirty soldiers, but he stopped his laughing when he saw them under fire. Our men strip the Yankee dead of their shoes, but will not touch the shoes of a comrade. Poor fellows, they are nearly barefoot.

Alex has come. I saw him ride up about dusk and go into the graveyard. I shut up my windows on that side. Poor fellow!

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A Diary of American Events.

July 12, 2012

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

July 12.—The Senate of the United States adopted the Confiscation Bill as it passed in the House of Representatives yesterday, by a vote of twenty-seven to thirteen.—The advance of Gen. Curtis’s army under General Washburn reached Helena, Ark., at nine o’clock this morning, having left Clarendon, on the White River, yesterday, at six A.M., and made a forced march of sixty-five miles in a day and a night.

Gen. Curtis left Batesville on the twenty-fourth ult. with twenty days’ rations, and after a halt of five days at Jacksonport, to concentrate the forces on his outposts, he took up his line of march, and his entire command are now en route for Helena.

From eight to twelve hundred rebels, under Matlock, who were on his front, fired on forage trains from canebrakes, and barricaded all the roads leading southward with trees felled by negroes, and placed every conceivable obstacle in the way of his men, but he overcame them all.

Gen. Washburn had a number of skirmishes on the route, in all of which the rebels were whipped, and with considerable loss to them, though with few casualties to the National troops.

—A fight took place at Lebanon, Ky., between a small body of Union troops, under the command of Colonel Johnson, and a force of rebel cavalry under John Morgan, resulting in the defeat of the Unionists and the capture of the town by the rebels.—(Doc. 87.)

—Large and enthusiastic meetings, for the purpose of promoting enlistments into the army under the call of President Lincoln for three hundred thousand additional troops, were this day held at Boston, Cambridge, Roxbury, Brookline, Somerville, Maiden, Springfield, and West-Cambridge, Mass., and at Portland, Maine. Speeches by distinguished and prominent citizens were made in each place. In several of the towns large sums of money were collected for the purpose of paying extra bounties to the volunteers.

—President Lincoln received the Senators and Representatives of the slaveholding Border States at the Presidential mansion, and addressed them on the subject of emancipation.

—General Smith, of the rebel army, issued an address to the forces under his command at Vicksburgh, Miss., thanking them for their bravery in resisting the attack made by the Union forces on the city.—The rebel General Albert Pike, in command of Fort McCulloch, Indian Territory, forwarded his “unconditional and absolute” resignation to Jeff Davis.

—The British schooner Julia, of Digby, N. S., captured by the National gunboat Kittatinny in Barrataria Creek, La., and the schooner Uncle Mose, captured by the gunboat Tahoma on the coast of Campeachy, arrived at Key West, Fla.— Colonel Thomas Cass, of the Ninth Massachusetts regiment, died at Boston from the effects of wounds received before Richmond.

—Fairmont, Missouri, was this day surprised by a band of bushwhackers, who plundered the town and carried off several of its inhabitants.

—The New-Orleans (La.) Delta, of this date, speaking of the sanitary condition of that city, said:

In the memory of the “oldest inhabitant,” our city was never more healthy at this season of the year. For this great blessing we are greatly indebted to Gen. Butler’s idea of relieving the poor, and at the same time getting said poor to clean up the streets. The order was intrusted to Gen. Shepley, who very judiciously selected Col. T. B. Thorpe to superintend the distribution of the charity of the Government, and see that the thousand laborers, the recipients, did their duty. The result is, that our city is a model of cleanliness.

—A fight took place at Culpepcr, Va., between a body of Union troops, under the command of Gen. Hatch, and a force of rebel cavalry, in which the rebels were routed, having had one killed, five wounded, and leaving eleven prisoners in the hands of the Unionists.

—The Unionists of North-Alabama having been much abused and persecuted by the rebels in that region, a body of Union troops, under the command of Colonel Streight, Fifty-first Indiana, were sent to relieve and protect them.—(Doc. 86.)

—The Union ram Switzerland, under the command of Lieut.-Col. Ellet, made a reconnoissance up the Yazoo River, for the purpose of ascertaining if the rebels had erected any breastworks along its banks.

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