Monday, 27th—Our entire regiment was at work on the fortifications. Nathan Chase and William Cross of my company had a fight today, all over some trivial matter. It seems that it is enough to have to fight the rebels without the men fighting among themselves. They were put into the guardhouse.
Saturday, October 27, 2012
To Mrs. Lyon.
Fort Henry, Tenn., Monday, October 27.—I do not dare to have you come until a little later. In the meantime I shall go on and get ready for you. If I can get lumber I shall build a little shanty. My tent has a good floor in it and so it is comfortable except in a cold wind. It is about the size of our parlor. We could get along very well in it, but perhaps better in a good board shanty. We had a snow storm Saturday. All went off the next day. The box came all right. The pickles and peaches I gave to the sick boys in the hospital. I am saving the cake till you come.
I had a letter from Augie Weissart, of Company K, from Corinth. He gives all the casualties of the battle.
Monday, 27th.—Drew my bounty to-day, $50.00. Clothing commutation, $25.00 and two months’ wages, $22.00; making $97.00.
Monday, 27th. Report that we are to go to Camp Cleveland, boys all pleased. Made picket detail and heard the officers discuss military tactics. Some rather ignorant. A beautiful day, warm and pleasant in the sun. Cold in the shade. Capt. N. officer of the day. Small train came from the fort and recruits for Battery. No news brought about going to Ohio and worse still, no mail. Pity that none of the 2nd Ohio care enough about their fellow soldiers to send their letters to them. Orders to march next morning at 6. Boys played poker till midnight—precious little sleep.
OCTOBER 27TH.—From information (pretty direct from Washington), I believe it is the purpose of the enemy to make the most strenuous efforts to capture Richmond and Wilmington this fall and winter. It has been communicated to the President that if it takes their last man, and all their means, these cities must fall. Gen. Smith is getting negroes to work on the defenses, and the subsistence officers are ordered to accumulate a vast amount of provisions here.
Letters from Beauregard show that the Commissary-General, because he thinks Charleston cannot be defended, opposes the provisioning the forts as the general would have it done! The general demands of the government to know whether he is to be overruled, and if so, he must not be held responsible for the consequences. We shall see some of these days which side the President will espouse. Beauregard is too popular, I fear, to meet with favor here. But it is life or death to the Confederacy, and danger lurks in the path of public men who endanger the liberties of the people.
October 27.—Patients from Bragg’s army are coming in daily; the hospital is full of them. I never saw such exhausted and worn-out men; they are in rags, and many of them barefooted. It is said the whole army suffered much; that many a time they had nothing to eat but parched corn.
Mrs. W. is much worse; has typhoid fever. There is a negro girl waiting on her, which to me is a relief.
I thought I had found a treasure in a white woman whom I have made my head cook; but, on going into the kitchen this morning, found her in such a state of intoxication I had to dismiss her, and fall back on the convalescent men as cooks. They do pretty well, but it seems hard to make them understand the importance of cooking properly.
There are many things, if not correctly prepared, are very injurious to the sick. Even mush, simple as it is, is seldom properly made. It should be boiled at least an hour, otherwise it is very unwholesome.
October 27.—The British steamer Anglia, with an assorted cargo, while attempting to run the blockade of Charleston, S. C, was captured by the United States bark Restless and steamer Flag.— (Doc. 14.)
—A fight took place near Fayetteville, Arkansas, between a force of Union troops, under the command of General Herron, and a large body of rebel guerrillas, resulting, after an hour’s duration, in the utter rout of the rebels, leaving eight dead on the field, some wounded, all their baggage and many of their wagons.
—The United States gunboat Clifton captured a rebel schooner with eighteen bales of cotton on board, in Matagorda Bay, Texas. The cotton was transferred to the gunboat, and the schooner burned.—A fight took place at Putnam’s Ferry, Mo., between a force of Union troops under the command of Colonel Lewis, Twenty-third Iowa, and a body of rebels numbering about one thousand five hundred, in which the latter were defeated with a loss of several killed and over forty taken prisoners.
A skirmish took place near Labadieville, La., between a force of Union troops under the command of General Weitzel, and a body of rebels under Colonel J. P. McPheeters, resulting in the rout of the latter with great loss. Colonel McPheeters was among the killed.—(Doc. 16.)
