29th.—Nothing of importance from the army. The people of Fredericksburg suffering greatly from the sudden move. I know a family, accustomed to every luxury at home, now in a damp basement-room in Richmond. The mother and three young daughters cooking, washing, etc.; the father, a merchant, is sick and cut off from business, friends, and every thing else. Another family, consisting of mother and four daughters, in one room, supported by the work of one of the daughters who has an office in the Note-Signing Department. To keep starvation from the house is all that they can do; their supplies in Fredericksburg can’t be brought to them—no transportation. I cannot mention the numbers who are similarly situated; the country is filled with them. Country houses, as usual, show a marvellous degree of elasticity. A small house accommodating any number who may apply; pallets spread on the floor; every sofa and couch sheeted for visitors of whom they never heard before. If the city people would do more in that way, there would be less suffering. Every cottage in this village is full; and now families are looking with wistful eyes at the ball-room belonging to the hotel, which, it seems to me, might be partitioned off to accommodate several families. The billiard-rooms are taken, it is said, though not yet occupied. But how everybody is to be supported is a difficult question to decide. Luxuries have been given up long ago, by many persons. Coffee is $4 per pound, and good tea from $18 to $20; butter ranges from $1.50 to $2 per pound; lard 50 cents; corn $15 per barrel; and wheat $4.50 per bushel. We can’t get a muslin dress for less than $6 or $8 per yard; calico $1.15, etc. This last is no great hardship, for we will all resort to homespun. We are knitting our own stockings, and regret that we did not learn to spin and weave. The North Carolina homespun is exceedingly pretty, and makes a genteel dress; the only difficulty is in the dye; the colours are pretty, but we have not learned the art of setting the wood colours; but we are improving in that art too, and when the first dye fades, we can dip them again in the dye.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
November 29 — I had some Yankee prisoners in charge last night. This afternoon an alarm reached camp that the Yankees were advancing on Winchester. We were immediately ordered to pack up our all and load it on the wagons, then we were ordered with the battery east of Winchester, on the Berryville pike, at the eastern outskirts of Winchester. The Maryland Line of infantry formed a line of battle on the south side of the pike, right opposite our battery. After we were in battle line an hour or so, and everything had settled down to the quiet hush of stilly night, the Maryland Line struck up and sang a lively and sentimental, yet pathetic song — “Annie Lyle.” It was well rendered. The deep, rich, full, round bass voices blended harmoniously with the clear and flowing tenors, and the spoken melody that floated on the frosty night air was as delightful and agreeable to the ear as the whisperings of an evening wind when it breathes its vesper hymn for dying day. There is a charm and an inspiration about music,— even in a simple song,— that those that have never heard it steal along a battle line in the silent watches of the night cannot comprehend the fullness of its enrapturing and inspiring influences. When the alarm reached Winchester that the Yankees were coming it caused great excitement among the citizens. When we passed through town toward the Berryville road, where it was reported that the enemy was approaching, the town was all in a stirred-up bustle. Men were running to and fro on the streets. Some of them looked and acted as if they would like to pick up the town and move it deeper into Dixie. The Yankees did not advance to-night, and when we came back to camp, which was nearly at midnight, all the excitement in town had died away. The streets were dark and silent save the sound of the steady tread of the soldier and the rumbling of artillery wheels. The city was asleep.
Saturday, 29th—We started this morning at 6 o’clock and arrived at Holly Springs at 10 o’clock. We remained there about two hours and then moved on to Waterford, eight miles distant, where we went into camp. We drove the rebels before us nearly all day and there was some skirmishing. The fighting in the streets of Waterford was sharp and the buildings were burned. There was heavy cannonading in the front late in the day. There are thousands of negroes, women and children, of all shades of color gathered at Holly Springs. The roads by which we marched were lined with them. The best of the negro men have been taken South by the rebels to work on their fortifications.
Saturday, 29th. Other brigades returned to Cane Hill, where we had been retained as reserve. Our brigade was ordered back to Rhea’s Mills. Moved back and camped north of the mill. Got the mail from the train just arrived. Six letters, two from Fannie, 3 from home and 1 from Will. Happy boy. Several papers.
Holly Springs, Miss., Saturday, Nov. 29. The bugle’s notes awoke me in the same position as that I fell asleep in three hours before. Prepared for march and started with the sun, in advance of the artillery; passed through Holly Springs about 11 A. M.; passed through the streets where twenty-four hours before the last of the rebels skedaddled. Holly Springs passed my expectations in size and beauty, being the largest place I have seen in Secession.
We traveled on in a southward course towards Waterford. General Hamilton and troupe passed us about 4 miles beyond Holly Springs. Two miles farther on we heard two guns discharged and heard rumors of a battle ahead. On the brow of a hill we were shown the grounds where the cavalry were engaged in the morning with the Rebs’ pickets, killing a Michigan boy and three Rebs. Ascended the hill which overlooked Waterford, consisting of a mill and a small creek, branch of Coldwater River. Here the enemy opened fire on our troops in the morning with two pieces which were taken. We forded the stream about 5 P. M., went into camp on the banks, got some flour from the mills (ground by the secesh for supper), and laid down under the gun on soil twenty-four hours ago occupied by Rebs, seven miles south of Holly Springs.
Nov. 29. — This is the steamer “Illinois,” in the stream, about half a mile off the Battery. The ship is preparing to sail. Evening; and by special courtesy, the surgeon being absent, I am invited to sleep in his berth to-night. No slight favor, you folks whose sheets are clean, to have a mattress softer than an oaken-deck plank; and a place to lay one’s head, sweeter than a bundle of old rope, soiled by the muddy feet of a trampling army. I stand up, portfolio in hand, half sitting, half leaning, against the cabin-table, with back toward the dim light. A throng of officers are writing, talking, and hurrying past. Now I am luckier: I have found a stool under a brighter light, and the cleanest and best place I have had to write my journal in since I began it.
Yesterday we marched to Brooklyn; then went off through lanterned vessels at dusk, past the glowing city, until at last the “Illinois” threw over us the shadow of her black hull and double stacks. We waited an hour in the cold, on the lighter; then another on the open deck, among the gun-carriages of a battery that was going with us. We were suffered at last to crowd into the cabin, all grumblers. Ed. could hardly make himself heard, though his lungs are good.
The wrath of the regiment vented itself in every form, — the oath, the deprecation, the remonstrance. Tom Barker fairly blued the air about him with vocal brimstone and sulphur, — a most accomplished and full-lunged blasphemer. From him, there was every gradation down to a little fellow who remonstrated with a gentle spill of milk and water.
Camp down, soldiers, where you can! This cabin is stripped of furniture and carpet: a mirror and the white paint are the only things to remind one of the old elegance of the packet. I glance at the glass as we crowd in. Which am I among the bearded, blue-coated, hustling men? I hardly know myself, sunburnt and muddied; the “52,” on the cap top, showing out in the lantern light. Sergt. Warriner, of Company A, — gentlemanly fellow, —left guide, whose elbow rubs mine at battalion-drill, offers me a place in a “bunk” he has found empty in one of the staterooms. Bias Dickinson, my wise and jovial file-leader, bunks over me. There is room for another: so I go out to where McGill is wedged into the crowding mass, and extract him as I would a tooth. Gradually the hubbub is quelled. The mass of men, like a river seeking its level, flows into “bunk” and stateroom, cabin and galley. Then the floors are covered, and a few miserable ones hold on to banisters and table-legs, and at last the regiment swears itself into an uncomfortable sleep.
NOVEMBER 29TH.—The Quartermaster-General publishes a notice that he will receive and distribute contributions of clothing, etc. to the army, and even pay for the shirts $1 each! Shirts are selling at $12. The people will not trust him to convey the clothing to their sons and brothers, and so the army must suffer on. But he is getting in bad odor. A gentleman in Alabama writes that his agents are speculating in food: the President tells the Secretary to demand explanations, and the Secretary does so. Col. Myers fails, I think, to make the exhibit required, and it may be the worse for him.
I see by the papers that another of Gen. Winder’s police has escaped to Washington City, and is now acting as a Federal detective. And yet many similar traitors are retained in service here!
The Governor of North Carolina writes the President that his State intends to organize an army of 10,000 men for its own defense, besides her sixty regiments in the Confederate States service; and asks if the Confederate States Government can furnish any arms, etc. The President sends this to the Secretary of War, for his advice. He wants to know Mr. Seddon’s views on the subject—a delicate and embarrassing predicament for the new Secretary, truly! He must know that the President frowns on all military organizations not under his own control, and that he counteracted all Gen. Floyd’s efforts to raise a division under State authority. Beware, Mr. Seddon! The President is a little particular concerning his prerogatives; and by the advice you now give, you stand or fall. What is North Carolina to the Empire? You tread on dangerous ground. Forget your old State-Rights doctrine, or off goes your head.
November 29.—The steamer Star was captured and burned by guerrillas at a point about two miles below Plaquemine, La. This morning the Star went up as high as Plaquemine; she soon left, and came down about a mile, when she landed and took in forty-five hogsheads of sugar; after which she crossed over to the left bank, at a wood-pile about another mile lower down, to take in wood. She had not got more than a cord when she was surprised by a gang of guerrillas, who took possession of her and moved her to the opposite side of the river, and after rolling out about thirty hogsheads of sugar, set her on fire. Captain McKiege and the engineer, William Dewey, were detained as prisoners, but the rest of the crew were given their liberty.—New-Orleans Delta, December 2.
—A skirmish occurred between a scouting-party from Captain Mear’s Maryland Home Guard, stationed at Berlin, and a body of Bob White’s rebel cavalry, in which the latter were put to flight with a loss of two men.—General Curtis, at St. Louis, Mo., reported to the War Department at Washington, that a cavalry expedition, under Major Torry, to the forks of the Mingo and St. Francis Rivers, had captured Colonel Phelan and ten men of the rebel army.
—The Savannah Republican says that “the people of Charleston, S. C, have pulled up their lead pipes and contributed sixty thousand pounds to the government, and that the government will issue receipts for all lead pipes and other fixtures, and binds itself to replace them at the end of the war.”—The advance column of the Union army under General Grant, passed through Holly Springs, Miss., this morning.—(Doc. 55.)
