August 24th. Sunday. It was after eight o’clock last night before the train got under way. At midnight we passed through Harrisburg, Penn. The night very dark. Did not get much sleep. A slow, tiresome journey. Passed through York, on over the state line into Maryland. Soldiers are on guard along the railroad. The train moved along very slowly, making many stops. About noon-time arrived in Baltimore. The regiment soon formed in line and marched through the city, stopping at the Soldier’s Rest on Camden Street, where dinner was served, bread, salt-beef, and coffee. Then waited for transportation to Washington. Late in the day orders were received to report at Fort McHenry for duty, and relieve the 48th New York Regiment. A march of four miles. That put our regiment in the 8th Army Corps, Army of the Potomac, General John E. Wool, Commander, Brigadier N. W. Morris, commanding the fort.
Friday, August 24, 2012
August 24 — This morning we went up the river to a ford a few miles below Waterloo bridge and crossed the river. All our cavalry that were on the dangerous side of the Rappahannock crossed to the safe side. This morning after we forded the river I took my gun to a blacksmith’s shop and had it repaired.
This afternoon we moved up the river to Waterloo bridge, in order to protect it from Yankee incendiarism. It seems they have marked it for destruction by the torch. If I were a Yankee general and had made the bombastic announcement, just three weeks ago, that I had never seen anything of the Rebels but their backs, I would certainly be ashamed to resort to bridge burning to keep the Rebels from getting to me. When we arrived at Waterloo the Yanks had a battery in position on the Fauquier side of the river, on a hill commanding the bridge and its approaches on this side of the river. They also had three regiments of infantry near the bridge. One of our guns and one of Captain Pelham’s guns went into position and fired on the Yankee battery. They returned our fire forthwith, and the Yankee artillery must be getting cross as they fired solid shot at us, trying to break our guns; but unless they get better gunners than they had this afternoon we will never receive much damage from such wild, scatter-gun shooting as they did to-day from all the solid shot in Uncle Sam’s pocket.
Late this evening we were ordered to put the first gun into position in a direct and raking line with the road that approaches the bridge on the Fauquier side of the river. We did it rather clandestinely, by winding through a thick brushy woods, in the edge of which we planted our gun unobserved by the enemy. Yet they were in full view of our position. The Yanks had a battery in position bearing on the bridge and two companies of infantry in column in the road fronting toward the bridge also.
I aimed my gun at the infantry in the road and loaded it with a percussioned shell and was ready to open and awaiting orders to fire. After waiting about fifteen minutes General Fitzhugh Lee came riding through the brush. When he got up to our position he dismounted and looked over the sights of the loaded gun and observed its line and range, then said: “Who aimed this gun?” After being told who did it, he remarked that it was very well done, and if fired with its present aim and range it would kill some of that infantry over there in the road.
He then called me up to the piece and said, “I do not want to hurt anybody; turn your gun on that battery and open fire on it,” which I did. The infantry referred to were the two hundred Yanks standing in the road in columns of fours, and the battery we fired on was on the left of the infantry in a field and a little higher up the hill. When we opened on the battery the infantry broke and flew for the woods. In two minutes after we fired the first shot every single one of the infantrymen were in the woods and out of sight. The Yankee battery promptly returned our fire, with four guns. We fired three shell at their battery, then withdrew from our position. At sunset we were ordered by General Fitzhugh Lee to take a position to rake the bridge in case the Yanks should attempt to burn it during the night. We got a commanding position and aimed the gun right at the bridge. At dark we loaded our piece and lay down and slept by it. However, we kept a sentinel on post near the gun to report alarms and receive orders during the night.
August 24th, Sunday.
Soon after dinner yesterday two soldiers stopped here, and requested permission to remain all night. The word “ soldier “ was enough for us; and without even seeing them, Anna and I gladly surrendered our room, and said we would sleep in Mrs. Badger’s, instead. However, I had no curiosity to see the heroes, and remained up here reading until the bell summoned me to supper, when I took my seat without looking at them, as no introduction was possible, from their having refrained from giving their names.
Presently I heard the words, “That retreat from Norfolk was badly conducted.” I looked up, and saw before me a rather good-looking man covered with the greatest profusion of gold cloth and buttons, for which I intuitively despised him. The impulse seized me, so I spoke. “Were you there?” “No; but near by. I was there with the First Louisiana for ‘most a year.” “Do you know George Morgan?” “Know George? Yes, indeed! You are his sister.” This was an assertion; but I bowed assent, and he went on, “Thought so, from the resemblance. I remember seeing you ten years ago, when you were a very little girl. I used to be at your house with the boys; we were schoolmates.” I remarked that I had no recollection of him. “Of course not,” he said, but did not inform me of his name. He talked very familiarly of the boys, and said he had met them all at Richmond. Next he astounded me by saying he was a citizen of Baton Rouge, though he had been almost four years in New York before the war broke out. He was going to town to look after the “property,” hearing his father had gone to France. An inhabitant of that city, who was so familiar with my brothers and me, and with whom I was not acquainted! Here was a riddle to solve. Let us see who among our acquaintances had gone to France. I could think of none. I made up my mind to find out his name if I had to ask it.
All through supper he talked, and when, in country style, the gentlemen left us at table, I found the curiosity of the others was even more excited than mine. I was determined to know who he was, then.
In the parlor, he made some remark about never having been in ladies’ society the whole time he was in Virginia. I expressed my surprise, as George often wrote of the pleasant young ladies he met everywhere. “Oh, yes!” said monsieur, “but it is impossible to do your duty as an officer, and be a lady’s man; so I devoted myself to my military profession exclusively.” “Insufferable puppy!” I said to myself. Then he told me of how his father thought he was dead, and asked if I had heard of his rallying twenty men at Manassas, and charging a Federal regiment, which instantly broke? I honestly told him, “No.” “Iagoo, the great boaster,” I decided. Abruptly he said there were very few nice young ladies in Baton Rouge. “Probably so, in his circle,” I thought, while I dryly remarked, “Indeed?” “Oh, yes!” and still more abruptly he said, “Ain’t you the youngest? — Yes! I thought so! I remember you when you were a wee thing, so high,” placing his hand at a most insultingly short distance from the floor. “Really I must ask your name,” I said. He hesitated a moment and then said in a low tone, “De J——.” “De —— What?” I absurdly asked, thinking I was mistaken. “A—— de J——” he repeated. I bowed slightly to express my satisfaction, said, “Anna, we must retire,” and with a good-night to my newly discovered gentleman, went upstairs.
He is the one I heard George speak of last December when he was here, as having been court-martialed, and shot, according to the universal belief in the army; that was the only time I had ever heard his name, though I was quite familiar with the cart of De J—— père, as it perambulated the streets. My first impressions are seldom erroneous. From the first, I knew that man’s respectability was derived from his buttons. That is why he took such pride in them, and contemplated them with such satisfaction. They lent him social backbone enough to converse so familiarly with me; without the effulgence of that splendid gold, which he hoped would dazzle my eye to his real position, he would have hardly dared to “remember me when I was a wee thing, so high.” Is he the only man whose coat alone entitles him to respectability? He may be colonel, for all I know; but still, he is A—— de J—— to me. He talked brave enough to be general.
This morning I met him with a cordial “Good-morning, Mr. de J——,” anxious to atone for several “snubs” I had given him, long before I knew his name, last night; you see I could afford to be patronizing now. But the name probably, and the fluency with which I pronounced it, proved too much for him, and after “Good-morning, Miss Morgan,” he did not venture a word. We knew each other then; his name was no longer a secret.
August 24, Sunday. Have a dispatch from General Burnside at Falmouth, calling earnestly for five or six gunboats in the Potomac at Acquia Creek. Mentions having made a personal application at the Navy Department. Nothing has been said to me by him or any one, nor has any requisition been made. I find, however, on inquiry, that in a general conversation in the room of the Chief Clerk he expressed something of the kind. The General feels that a heavy responsibility is upon him, and in case of disaster desires like others the protection of the gunboats. It is honorable to him that, unlike some other generals, he willingly gives credit to the Navy. The protection he now seeks is a wise precaution, perhaps, but, I apprehend, wholly unnecessary. I have, however, ordered Wilkes to send round five gunboats from James River. The War Department sends me a letter from Major-General Curtis to General Halleck, requesting more gunboats on the Western rivers. Wrote Admiral Davis that the navigation of the Mississippi should be kept unobstructed, not only between Memphis and Arkansas River but elsewhere, and to cooperate with and assist the army.
24th.—The great size and draft of our ocean steamer made it necessary for us to lie by last night, and we are this morning running into Aquia Creek.
When we arrived we found no orders awaiting us. Immediately dispatched the steamer Montreal to Washington for instructions. Whilst waiting for dispatches from Washington, we have listened to a good sermon on deck, from our Chaplain. At half-past 12 o’clock the dispatch boat returned from Washington with orders to proceed immediately to Alexandria, and disembark.
Five months ago yesterday, we embarked at the very dock at which we now lie, to take Richmond. Now, at the end of the five months, we have arrived at the same spot, with nearly a hundred thousand less men than we took away, having expended $70,000,000, and accomplished nothing else which we undertook. It is vain to deny that our campaign has been a monstrous failure, that the men have lost confidence in their leaders, and that they are feeling, in a great measure, indifferent to the result. At 8 p. m., we are again ashore at Alexandria, and the scream of the locomotive, the rattling of the cars, the voices of women and children, with other signs of civil life, break so strangely on our ears. I feel deeply anxious as to the result of General Pope’s fight yesterday. The enemy have got between him and Washington. We can hear nothing from him and all is uncertainty in regard to his little army. God help him!
Sunday, 24th—I went out on picket this morning to remain at the one post for twenty-four hours. I was on vedette for eight hours, two hours at a time. The vedette has to stand out in advance of the reserve post, one hundred yards or more. This post is about three miles east from Bolivar on the main road, having a high rail fence on either side. If the rebels should make a raid on the town, they would have to come in on this road.
24th. Sunday. In the morning found my old contraband missing. Didn’t think it worth while to look for it. Cleaned up and prepared for inspection. Archie and Reeve laid out a bed of state pistols, sabres and spurs. Wrote to Melissa and Ma and some more to Fannie. Read some in an old Independent. In the evening went out and heard Chaplain preach a good sermon. Romans, 6th chapter, 11th verse. Good remarks. Mrs. Miner was out to hear him. The Mrs. Majors are still here raising sensations. Seemed good to see them horseback riding.
AUGUST 24TH.—In both Houses of Congress they are thundering away at Gen. Winder’s Provost Marshal and his Plug Ugly alien policemen. Senator Brown has been very bitter against them.
August 24.—Gen. Butler, believing that a large portion of the colored militia force of the State of Louisiana were willing to take service in the volunteer forces of the United States, issued an order at New-Orleans, directing that the members of the “Native Guards,” and all other free colored citizens recognized by the late Governor and authorities of the State as a portion of the militia of the State, who should enlist in the volunteer service of the United States, should be organized by the appointment of proper officers, and accepted, paid, equipped, armed and rationed as other volunteer troops of the United States, subject to the approval of the President
—The battle between the Union army under General Pope, and that part of the rebel forces under Gen. Lee, which crossed the Rappahannock yesterday, was this morning resumed in the vicinity of Sulphur Springs and Waterloo Bridge. Cannonading was kept up all day, but without doing much damage to either side.—(Doc. 104.)
—Quantrel’s and Hays’s bands of guerrillas, overtook six companies of the Second and three companies of the Sixth Kansas regiments near Lamar, Kansas, when the attack was commenced by the Sixth under the command of Major Campbell and Capt. Grand. The fight continued two hours, during which time the Nationals lost two killed and twenty-one wounded. The Second Kansas regiment took no part in the affair.—The schooner Water-Witch, was captured off Aransas, Texas, by the United States schooner Corypheus. —The Eighteenth regiment of Maine volunteers, commanded by Col. Daniel Chaplin, left their camp near Bangor, for the seat of war.—Charles J. Ingersoll was arrested at Philadelphia, Pa., by Deputy-Marshal Schuyler.
—A skirmish took place near Dallas, Mo., between four companies of the Twelfth cavalry regiment, Missouri State militia, under the command of Major B. F. Lazear, and a numerically superior force of rebel guerrillas, under Col. Jeffries, resulting in a rout of the latter, with some loss.— St. Louis Republican.
