July 13TH.—We have some of Gen. Pope’s proclamations and orders. He is simply a braggart, and will meet a braggart’s fate. He announces his purpose to subsist his army in our country, and moreover, he intends to shoot or hang our non-combating citizens that may fall into his hands, in retaliation for the killing of any of his thieving and murdering soldiers by our avenging guerrillas. He says his headquarters will be on his horse, and that he will make no provision for retreat. That he has been accustomed to see the backs of his enemies! Well, we shall see how he will face a Stonewall!
Friday, July 13, 2012
July 13th, Sunday.
A profitable way to spend such a day! Being forced to dispense with church-going, I have occupied myself in reading a great deal, and writing a little, which latter duty is a favorite task of mine after church on Sundays. But this evening, the mosquitoes are so savage that writing became impossible, until Miriam and I instituted a grand extermination process, which we partly accomplished by extraordinary efforts. She lay on the bed with the bar half-drawn over her, and half-looped up, while I was commissioned to fan the wretches from all corners into the pen. It was rather fatiguing, and in spite of the numbers slain, hardly recompensed me for the trouble of hunting them around the room; but still, Miriam says exercise is good for me, and she ought to know.
I have been reading that old disguster, Boswell. Bah! I have no patience with the toady! I suppose “my mind is not yet thoroughly impregnated with the Johnsonian ether,” and that is the reason why I cannot appreciate him, or his work. I admire him for his patience and minuteness in compiling such trivial details. He must have been an amiable man, to bear Johnson’s brutal, ill-humored remarks; but seems to me if I had not spirit enough to resent the indignity, I would at least not publish it to the world! Briefly, my opinion, which this book has only tended to confirm, is that Boswell was a vain, conceited prig, a fool of a jackanape, an insupportable sycophant, a — whatever mean thing you please; there is no word small enough to suit him. As to Johnson, he is a surly old bear; in short, an old brute of a tyrant. All his knowledge and attainments could not have made me tolerate him, I am sure. I could have no respect for a man who was so coarse in speech and manners, and who eat like an animal. Fact is, I am not a Boswellian, or a Johnsonian, either. I do not think him such an extraordinary man. I have heard many conversations as worthy of being recorded as nineteen-twentieths of his. In spite of his learning, he was narrow-minded and bigoted, which I despise above all earthly failings. Witness his tirades against Americans, calling us Rascals, Robbers, Pirates, and saying he would like to burn us! Now I have railed at many of these ordinary women here, for using like epithets for the Yankees, and have felt the greatest contempt for their absurd abuse. These poor women do not aspire to Johnsonian wisdom, and their ignorance may serve as an excuse for their narrow-mindedness; but the wondrous Johnson to rave and bellow like any Billingsgate nymph! Bah! He is an old disguster!
On Sunday, the 13th of July, 1862, President Lincoln invited me to accompany him in his carriage to the funeral of an infant child of Mr. Stanton. Secretary Seward and Mrs. Frederick Seward were also in the carriage. Mr. Stanton occupied at that time for a summer residence the house of a naval officer, I think Hazard, some two or three miles west, or northwest, of Georgetown. It was on this occasion and on this ride that he first mentioned to Mr. Seward and myself the subject of emancipating the slaves by proclamation in case the Rebels did not cease to persist in their war on the Government and the Union, of which he saw no evidence. He dwelt earnestly on the gravity, importance, and delicacy of the movement, said he had given it much thought and had about come to the conclusion that it was a military necessity absolutely essential for the salvation of the Union, that we must free the slaves or be ourselves subdued, etc., etc.
This was, he said, the first occasion when he had mentioned the subject to any one, and wished us to frankly state how the proposition struck us. Mr. Seward said the subject involved consequences so vast and momentous that he should wish to bestow on it mature reflection before giving a decisive answer, but his present opinion inclined to the measure as justifiable, and perhaps he might say expedient and necessary. These were also my views. Two or three times on that ride the subject, which was of course an absorbing one for each and all, was adverted to, and before separating the President desired us to give the question special and deliberate attention, for he was earnest in the conviction that something must be done. It was a new departure for the President, for until this time, in all our previous interviews, whenever the question of emancipation or the mitigation of slavery had been in any way alluded to, he had been prompt and emphatic in denouncing any interference by the General Government with the subject. This was, I think, the sentiment of every member of the Cabinet, all of whom, including the President, considered it a local, domestic question appertaining to the States respectively, who had never parted with their authority over it. But the reverses before Richmond, and the formidable power and dimensions of the insurrection, which extended through all the Slave States, and had combined most of them in a confederacy to destroy the Union, impelled the Administration to adopt extraordinary measures to preserve the national existence. The slaves, if not armed and disciplined, were in the service of those who were, not only as field laborers and producers, but thousands of them were in attendance upon the armies in the field, employed as waiters and teamsters, and the fortifications and intrenchments were constructed by them.
13th.—One year ago this day, the —— Regiment of —— Volunteers entered the service of the United States. It then numbered between ten and eleven hundred of the finest troops that ever went to battle. Its history in that brief period, though sad, is briefly summed up. On the 19th of June, 1861, the regiment was organized. On the 24th of July following, it took up its hurried march, to aid in arresting the tide of retreat which was rushing from Bull Run on Washington, and was, I am told, the first Western regiment which passed through Pennsylvania to support our beaten friends. Early in August it reached Washington, was shortly after brigaded under command of General R—— K—— , a Commander in all respects worthy of the position he held. The measles, in its very worst form, had broken out in camp, before the regiment left the State of ——, and from severe exposure on a most hurried journey, much sickness prevailed for a time after its arrival at Washington. General K ——, being endowed with feelings which could never witness suffering without sympathy, fully realized the fact that sick and feeble men were an encumbrance to the army. He was constantly on the watch, and every means in his power was employed to preserve the health and energy of his men; nor did he permit either vanity or vindictiveness to interpose between his Surgeons and their proper duties. The restored health and vigor of his men responded beautifully to his care and his efforts.
Some time in September the regiment was transferred to the brigade of Gen. —— S—— , and although after this transfer their position subjected them to more labor and exposure, their health and comfort whilst under his command were looked after with such care and solicitude that their efficiency continued to improve, and on the 1st of October, not a man had died in camp, or had been killed or wounded in battle. About that time they were transferred to the brigade of Gen. ——. This General showed himself possessed of one very Napoleonic trait of character, that when an object is to be attained the lives of men are not to be estimated. The men were exposed and hard worked. The efforts of the surgeons were not seconded. Their advice was disregarded. Sickness increased. The men became jaded and dejected, and the frequent passing of a squad to the solemn tread of the dead march, and with arms reversed, told sadly that another foe was at work. The cool days of November brought hopes of restored health and vigor, but continued severity of discipline and disregard of sanitary demands, blasted the hopes and brought even more frequent processions to the grave.
The New Year came without a death on the battle-field, but with greatly thinned ranks. The winter passed with constant work and constant exposure, without an enemy in our field. The men sickened of the work of the menial, and panted for that of the soldier. The battle of Drainesville was fought in our hearing, but we were not permitted to participate. Their spirits were buoyed up by promises that soon we should have the enemy at Manassas “in a bag,” and then we should have only to go forward and capture them. But notwithstanding these promises we were compelled to chop, to dig, to do picket duty, and to see them going away before our very faces without being permitted to prevent it. So great had been our losses that recruiting officers had been sent off, and men were added to the regiment sufficient to swell its original number to between eleven and twelve hundred.
On the 23d March, 1863, the regiment (in the same brigade) embarked at Alexandria, for the Peninsula between the James and York Rivers. On its arrival, hard work, hard marches and exposure seemed the order of every day. Numbers were discharged from service daily, on account of constitutions broken by excessive demands on the nervous energy of the men. They were anxious, whilst able, to be led to battle, but for them only drudgery was reserved; and although for weeks our regiment has been within sight of the enemy, or within hearing of his guns, never to this day has it been permitted to attack.
At Williamsburg it fought on the defensive, and scarcely had it engaged till it was ordered to fall back. By declining to obey that order it at last found an opportunity of its long wished for ambition, to distinguish itself in fight. In that fight, despite the order of its General, it saved the battle of Williamsburg—the Army of the Potomac. The regiment lost in the fight nine killed, and seventy-one wounded. It fought that day under Gen. Hancock, and this is the battle in which Gen. McClellan telegraphed that “Hancock’s success was won with a loss of less than twenty in killed and wounded!” Was the Commander-in-Chief ignorant of the facts about which he telegraphed? Or did Gen. Hancock need some “setting up?” However this may be, the Commander-in-Chief publicly declared to this regiment that to it he owed the victory, and promised that it should have “Williamsburg inscribed on its banner.” Notwithstanding this promise, “Williamsburg” got on to other banners, but never found its place on that to which it was promised. Why?
Experience seemed to have taught no good lessons. Large demands continued to be made on the energies of the men. They sank under the efforts, and on the retreat before Richmond, when at the battle of White Oak Swamp, and Malvern Hills, all the force of active and robust men were needed. This regiment which had brought to the field eleven hundred of as good men as ever went to war,[1] which had not lost thirty men in battle, now tottered feebly into line with only two hundred and twenty-seven muskets, borne by men feeble, emaciated, and as nearly spiritless as it is possible for ambitious and energetic men to be.
I omitted to record, in the proper place, that though the regiment was in the fight on the night of the 27th of June, doing great execution, not a man was killed, and only twelve wounded.
This is an epitomized history of one regiment for a year.
The signs of the times portend that we have done “playing war.” Our Generals have now been taught a lesson of realities, which it is to be hoped will be heeded. Our muskets will hardly be seen guarding the property of rebels, whilst these are shooting down our men in the battle. Contratrabands are being taken into the employment of the government, and are relieving the soldiers of much hard and depressing labor. As matter of economy, the regimental brass bands are being discharged. This is pretty hard, but as economy is necessary to a proper and successful prosecution of the war, we submit cheerfully. Our good band then will no more carry us forward in pleasing imagination to the land of “Dixie,” nor ‘backward to the melancholy ” days of Auld Lang Syne,” the “Star Spangled Banner,” will not again wake our drowsy energies “At the Twilight’s Last Gleaming;” nor shall we be awoke in the “Stilly Night,” by the romping, rolicking music of “The Girl I Left Behind Me.” We shall part with regret, not only the band, but with particular members, whose conduct has on all occasions been courteous and gentlemanly. Their leader has also made himself useful by his peculiar talent for scouting, often learning almost instinctively the position and strength of the enemy.
[1] The physical superiority of the Western over the Eastern regiments was illustrated in the athletic exercises on first of January, at Camp Griffin. [See journal of that date.]
Sunday, 13th—No news of importance. Some of the men occasionally get into religious discussions. There are two of them rather strong in the Universalist doctrine. One of them who reads the Bible a good bit got into a discussion today with some of the men. While some of the boys are church members in their homes, there are a good many who are not.
To Mrs. Lyon.
Camp Clear Creek, Miss., Sunday, July 13,1862 — This is the only way I can celebrate your birthday, to write a long letter. Well, my dear, you are thirty-six years old, are you? Old enough to be a grandmother! I think it about time for you to give up thinking you are good looking, and begin to learn how to grow old gracefully. Confidentially, however, to me you are, etc., etc. I wonder what you will have for dinner today, and speaking of dinner reminds me that some time ago you asked me to tell you how I live, which I believe I have neglected to do thus far. I do not mean that I have neglected to live, but I have failed to give you the modus operandi—to tell you how the thing is done.
Reveille beats at daylight. We get up, clean our tents and quarters, shake blankets, wash, and at 5:30 a, m. turn out and drill for an hour. Then we have breakfast —ham, warm biscuit and very good butter, black tea, pickles, blackberries or currant sauce, is the usual bill of fare for breakfast; ditto for dinner, ditto for supper. I consume very large quantities. We get ham, flour and tea of the commissary; pickles, butter, cheese, etc., of the sutler. Once in a great while I smoke. I have done so today. I think I may possibly repeat it before night. We have battalion drill at 5:30 p. m., and dress parade until sundown; tattoo at 8:30, and then to our downy beds. Mine is luxurious. I smoothed it off the other day with a spade. As usual, I shirk a good deal. For instance, I make the sergeants and corporals take charge of the company at morning drill, under pretense of their learning how to give the commands! Then I divide the company into squads, and put a sergeant over each squad, charged with the duty of seeing to the men— their cleanliness, their arms—in short, everything. This I do under pretense that the ‘Regulations’ require it. ‘Regulations’ is a great institution in the army. It teaches us ‘how not to do it,’ which is the true philosophy of thinking. Blessed be the man who invented the ‘Regulations.’ So, when I say, ‘we’ do anything, you will understand that I speak in a sort of Pickwickian sense. I mean that the boys do it and I help them if I can’t dodge. This last remark applies with peculiar force to the one item of getting up in the morning before daylight.
Camp Green Meadwos, July 13, 1862. Sunday. — Struck tents this morning on Flat Top at 5 A. M. and marched to this place, reaching here at 11:30A. M., fourteen miles; a jolly march down the mountain under a hot sun. Many sore feet.
Band played its lively airs; the men cheered, and all enjoyed the change. We are east of Camp Jones and about three miles from the mouth of Bluestone River and New River, within six miles of camp at Packs Ferry on New River. The camp being one thousand to fifteen hundred feet lower than Flat Top is warmer. We shall learn how to bear summer weather here. Our waggons arrived about 6:30 P. M. We relieved here two companies of the Thirtieth under Captain Gross. I command here six companies Twenty-third, Captain Gilmore’s Cavalry, a squad of Second Virginia, a squad of McMullen’s Battery, and a squad on picket of Captain Harrison’s Cavalry.
13th. Awoke early and found my horse. Took him out to graze. Issued rations to the whole command. Tired at night. Slept out with the pickets, with Charlie Fairchild.
Harrison’s Landing, James River, Va.,
Sunday, July 13, 1862.
Dear Brother and Sister:—
The morning inspection is over, and as I have not much to do for the rest of the day I will spend a portion of the time in writing to you, though I have no letter to answer.
We have no preaching to-day. Our chaplain (Elder Flower) has resigned and gone home, and I don’t think the most pious man in the regiment is at all sorry. The great thunderer who was so conspicuous at all the war meetings, and who “expected” to go with us “to pray for us, to preach to us, and to fight with us,” has proved a miserable failure. He has not preached one-fourth of the time when he might just as well as not, and as to fighting with us, when the shells began to fly and the balls to hiss around, he always concluded that fighting was not in his line of business. I don’t say it was, but one would naturally expect a little show of pluck from a minister of the gospel who was so wonderfully courageous and war-like way up in Erie. He might at least have been round with some cheering word for a mortally wounded or dying soldier; but, ah no, such men are always lying too close to bursting shells and such things, for a chaplain to risk his precious life for his country. I may be severe, but it is just as I feel, and I am glad he is gone, for we may in time get a live man for a chaplain. I warrant you, when he gets home he will have some big stories to tell about the Eighty-third fighting, but if you see or hear him, just ask him how much he saw of it. Ask him where he was at the battle of Malvern Hill.
A short distance from where I am writing was where President Harrison was born. His father and mother are buried here, and all this section was once his estate. It is now owned by a man in Richmond by the name of Carter, I believe. He left the house in charge of the darkies, with orders to burn it if the Yankees came, but they didn’t obey orders, and in and around the old mansion some eighteen hundred sick and wounded soldiers are now quartered.
We had a review by moonlight a few nights ago. “Old Abe” was down here to see the army, and he did not get round to us till 9 o’clock at night, but it was beautiful moonlight, and as he went galloping past, riding beside “Little Mac,” everyone could tell him by his “stovepipe hat” and his unmilitary acknowledgment of the cheers which everywhere greeted him. His riding I can compare to nothing else than a pair of tongs on a chair back, but notwithstanding his grotesque appearance, he has the respect of the army. But the man in the army is “Little Mac.” No general could ask for greater love and more unbounded confidence than he receives from his men, and the confidence is mutual. He feels that he has an army he can depend on to do all that the same number of men can do anywhere. He is everywhere among “his boys,” as he calls them, and everywhere he is received with the most unbounded enthusiasm. He was here yesterday about noon. The boys were getting dinner or lounging about under the trees, smoking, reading or writing, when we heard a roar of distant cheers away down the road a mile or more. “Little Mac’s a-coming” was on every tongue. “Turn out the guard —General McClellan.” called the sentry on the road. The guard paraded and the men flocked to the roadside. He came riding along on his “Dan Webster.” by the way as splendid a horse as you ever saw. He rode slowly, looking as jovial and hearty as if he could not be more happy. Up go the caps, and three rousing cheers that make the old woods ring, greet the beloved leader of the Army of the Potomac. He raises his cap in graceful acknowledgement of the compliment, and so he passes along. Those cheers always give notice of his approach. He speaks an occasional encouraging word, and the men return to their occupations more and more devoted to the flag and their leader. But what have they to say to the men who have been using their influence to prevent his being reinforced, to secure his defeat, and in some way to so prolong the war as to make the abolition of slavery a military necessity? Curses loud and deep are heaped on such men. Old Greeley would not live twenty-four hours if he should come here among the army. I used to be something of an abolitionist myself, but I’ve got so lately that I don’t believe it is policy to sacrifice everything to the nigger. Such a policy as Greeley advocates, of letting this army be defeated for the purpose of making the people see that slavery must be abolished before we could end the war, I tell you is “played out.” Ten thousand men have been sacrificed to that idea now, and the remainder demand that some other policy be adopted henceforth. We want that three hundred thousand men raised and sent down here immediately. We want them drafted if they won’t volunteer. We want the men who have property to furnish the government with the means to carry on the war. We want such a force sent here that the whole thing can be finished up by fall. We’ve been fooling about this thing long enough, and now we want a change. No more playing at cross purposes by jealous generals, no more incompetent or traitorous officials. The army demands and the people demand such a vigorous prosecution of the war as shall give some hope of ending it some time or other. McClellan must be reinforced sufficiently to enable him to do something more than keep at bay three times his force. That will never conquer the South. We must take the offensive and destroy their army and take their capital. When this is done, the clouds will begin to break.
We are doing nothing but lying still now. The weather is so warm that nothing can be done in the middle of the day.
We get plenty of hard tack, bacon, salt pork and coffee and sugar, and we have learned to be content with that. Some new troops (Thirty-second Massachusetts) that arrived here a few days ago, thought they had pretty hard fare—”they hadn’t seen any soft bread for three days.”
We are getting some new things in place of those we lost at Gaines’ Mill. We have got new blankets, haversacks, blouses, pants, shoes, socks and shirts, and requisitions are sent in for tents, knapsacks, canteens, etc., in fact, everything we need. But we never will get what we lost in our knapsacks.
I received a letter from Uncle Newell a few days ago and he said the story was circulated in Sherman some time ago that I was to be shot for deserting. What do you think of that? Had you heard much about it? I hadn’t. I didn’t even know that I had been courtmartialed.
There has been some talk lately of the possibility of our being sent to Erie to fill up our regiment and reorganize. The officers got up a request to that effect, and it was signed by Generals Butterfield, Morell, Porter and McClellan, and sent to the Secretary of War and Governor Curtin, but I have not much of an idea that it will be granted. We may be sent somewhere to guard prisoners or something of that sort, till recruits are raised to fill up our regiment again, but I don’t believe we will see Erie till the war is over. The bands are to be discharged and I presume Alfred Ayres will be home soon.
Eliza Woolsey Howland to her sister, Georgeanna.
Fishkill, July 13.
Except for seeing how much good the rest and the home scenes are doing Joe, I would much rather be at Harrison’s Point. He is improving nicely. His wound is not healed yet, but the inflammation has all gone and it looks better every day, . . . and but for a good deal of debility and shakiness of leg and hand, he would be quite himself. . . . Did they tell you of the demonstration the village people had prepared, and how we had to change our time of coming and telegraph secretly to Mr. Masters at Newburgh in order to escape it? They had actually arranged to take the horses out of the carriage and drag Joe home themselves. Fancy the struggle we should have had, to maintain an expression of mingled gratification and humility all through the three miles!
Joe received the other day the company reports of the 16th’s part in Friday’s battle, and their simple story is exceedingly touching—all of them speaking particularly of the coolness and cheerfulness of the men. Lieutenant Corbin, who wrote the little poem, makes out the report of Company C, which in its quaintness and simplicity reminds one of the old days of knight errantry. “Four of my men,” he says, “fell dead fighting bravely and pleasantly.” Company C, you know, is the color company, and of them he says, “The colors, which my company had the honor to guard, were safely kept, though they bear many an evidence of the hot fire in which they stood.” The reports are nearly all equally simple, and one captain says, speaking of the order to cross and reinforce Porter, “This seemed highly pleasing to the boys, and with elastic step we took up our march for Gaines’ Mill.” Joe says they came out of the fight, too, with equal bravery and cheerfulness, and he got a smile from every man he looked at that day. They all seem to want him back again, and his great anxiety is to be with them.
