Alabama.
Sunday, 28th.—Camped one and one-half miles from Whitesburg on Tennessee River.
Friday, December 28, 2012
Sunday, 28th—The weather is quite cool. We are pretty hard on clothes in the army. My bill for clothes up to this time is as follows: One overcoat, $7.20; two dress coats, $13.42; four pair pants, $12.12; two pair double woolen blankets, $5.12; three pair drawers, $1.50; two pair shoes, $3.12; three woolen shirts, $2.64; one rubber poncho, $2.73; four pair socks, $1.04; one hat, $1.55; one cap, 60c; one knapsack, $1.56; one haversack, 56¢; one canteen, 44¢. [1]
[1] Then there was that leather collar (“dog collar”) to make us hold up our heads; it cost fourteen cents, but it was enough and the only one needed during the four years of war.—A. G. D.
Sunday, 28. — On Christmas my wife’s cousins, Lieutenant Nelson and privates Ed and Ike Cook and Jim McKell[1] dined with me; all of Company D, Eighty-ninth Regiment. A. M. of that day the regiment fired by battalion and file. P. M. I offered a turkey to the marksman who would hit his head, and a bottle of wine and a tumbler to next best shot, and a bottle of wine to third best. A bright,- warm day and a jolly one — a merry Christmas indeed.
[The] 26th and 27th, mild days and cloudy but only a few drops of rain. Dr. Kellogg spent the 26th with us — surgeon on General Scammon’s staff. Talked free-thinking talk with him in a joking vein. A clever gentleman. Major Carey stopped [the] 27th with us — of the Twelfth. Told a good one; the Thirty-fourth got a good lot of lumber; put a sentinel over it. After dark the Twelfth got up a relief — relieved the Thirty-four sentinel and carried off the lumber!
[1] Willie McKell. He died at Andersonville 1864. — This written on margin by Mr. Hayes.
From Mrs. Lyon’s Diary
Dec. 28.—The regiment returned from their recent expedition, all safe, not having found the enemy at all. We made up our minds that we were now going to have a good visit, but a dispatch arrived from Colonel Lowe with orders for the Thirteenth to go to Paris, as there is a strong force of rebels there, to prevent the Unionists from voting for their Congressional member. They are to have their election today. I fear our men will not get off so easily again. The men are completely tired out from their march, being in camp only one night. They started from here about five o’clock p. m., and will have to march all night to get there. This expedition is entirely under William’s supervision. His orders were to disembark at Paris Landing, and after that to do what seemed proper to him. He has two companies of cavalry with him. When he told me yesterday that they were going, I told him that I intended to go home on the gunboat, but he begged so hard for me to stay that I told him I would stay unless I heard bad news from home. He feels as badly as I do that he can not be with me, and says that they will surely be back in a few days.
The weather is perfectly beautiful. It is so warm that I do not pretend to put anything around me when I go out. The birds are singing as they do with us in the spring. The Eighty-Third Illinois Regiment from Fort Donelson has just passed, to join the Thirteenth in the expedition.
Near Memphis, Tenn., Sunday, Dec. 28. Slept out-doors. Awoke at 5 A. M. A beautiful morning. Byhalia, unlike Tallaloosa, was a bright and lively little village, with a large school house, church, lodge room, with a scientific laboratory, out of which the boys jay-hawked numerous books, writing utensils, etc. etc. Picked up two horses and two mules. The owner of the horses came and pleaded hard, but could receive no other satisfaction than a receipt from Lieutenant Clark. He was reported to be a rank Secesh, as well as everybody else.
We started with the 1st Brigade in rear of the train at 9 A. M. Twenty-eight miles from Memphis, passed a house where a woman stood in the yard, bravely holding the Stars and Stripes in her hand (to protect her chickens I suppose). Marched along quietly; nothing of importance save the appropriation of considerable molasses along the road until half an hour of sundown when a small party of guerrillas dashed up in our rear, discharging some fifteen or twenty pieces, then legging it before their fire could be returned. We halted, the cannoneers sprang to their posts, got their equipments, when the 48th Indiana formed their line. But it was all over with. They were gone, and we started on. Two of the balls took effect, wounding two boys of the 48th Indiana in the arms. An assistant adjutant general and surgeon [who] had wandered a little from the train, were taken also by a few of Jackson’s cavalry, divested of their accoutrements and horses, then paroled.
7 P. M. Drew up three-fourths of an hour to feed our horses, then started on, travelled till 10 P. M. Came into camp seven miles from Memphis.
Maryland Heights, Dec. 28, 1862.
Dear Family:
We have no letter from you. We are situated on the highest point of the Blue Range. Can see a distance of 40 miles in the valley of Virginia, and mountains some 75 miles distant. To the south west, on the opposite side of the river, is the village of Charlestown, where John Brown was hung, some 12 miles from here. To the N. W. is Martinsburg, 50 miles. It is a beautiful sight to see, worth coming for. Can see the valley of the Shenandoah for 15 miles, so notorious for the retreats and advances of the two armies of Gen. Banks and Jackson. There was a great commotion here, the other night, caused by a despatch from the two Gens, at Winchester that the enemy was coming and that they would fall back on Harper’s Ferry. But they have n’t come yet. The men are building barracks 24 in. thick. The detachment of Company H left two, which they had built for themselves. From the direction the rebels came, when they took the place, are lots of what might be called graves, with toes and hands out of the ground. The boys get bones and buttons and such things as relics. We have had a hard time of it so far; but no cause to grumble. Hard work to get food or water up the mountain. It takes five mules to bring a half load of water and that takes half a day. We are trying to get a pack mule to bring water. They are going to have a signal station. They are signaling now to a point of rocks 12 miles down the river, the place where the rebs crossed at the battle of Antietam. Capt., I will ask if once a week won’t do to write long letters? Time flies faster up here; we are above the clouds a good part of the time.
I expect muster rolls to-day, but have nothing but an old box to make them out on. I am writing now on a cigar-box cover on my lap.
[His writing and spelling had taken a great jump in a few weeks, showing unconscious control and a high standard in these respects.—Ed.]
Camp near Fredericksburg, Dec. 28th, 1862.
The battle of Fredericksburg has been fought and —lost. We are now engaged in the laudable occupation of making ourselves comfortable; building log huts to protect ourselves from the cold storms of winter. Our brigade—the First—was not engaged at Fredericksburg. We were commanded by Colonel Poe, a graduate of West Point, a man thoroughly versed in the art of war. He saw the utter hopelessness of the struggle, and, when the order came to advance, he flatly refused to sacrifice his men in the unequal contest. Of course, he was put under arrest, and will be court-martialed, but he saved his men.
The eighteen thousand slaughtered husbands and sons who fell at Fredericksburg does not comprise our greatest loss. This whole army, for the time being, is thoroughly demoralized. It has lost all confidence in its leaders—a condition more fatal than defeat.
The leaders of the different corps do not work in unison. Our commander lacks the mental force to weld and bind these discordant, disintegrating elements into one solid, compact, adhesive mass, subject to his will and guided by his judgment; and herein lies the cause of our defeat.
Everything has the appearance of a protracted stay. We cannot advance; the enemy is too strongly fortified; if he were not, we would give him time to do so. And yet it is dangerous to stay. It is all Government can do, with the river open and all available transports, to furnish this great army with supplies. Should the river freeze, or the Rebels gain a position on its banks, we would be starved out in short order.
December 28.—The trestle-work at Muldraugh’s Hill, Ky., guarded by the Seventy-first Indiana regiment, was captured, after a fight of ten hours, by a superior force of rebels, under John H. Morgan, and destroyed.—New-Madrid, Mo., was evacuated by the National forces, after destroying the barracks and magazine.—Louisville Journal.
—A skirmish occurred to-day in the vicinity of Suffolk, Va., between a reconnoitring force of troops, under the command of Acting Brigadier-General Gibbs, and a force of rebel cavalry, in which the latter were routed and driven for six or eight miles. The Nationals captured a number of horses and fire-arms, the latter of which the rebels threw away in their flight.— Baltimore American.
Van Buren, Ark., was entered and captured by a force of Union troops, under the command of General J. G. Blunt, together with the rebel garrison, a large amount of ammunition, four steamboats laden with army supplies, and a ferry-boat.— (Doc. 90.)
—Major Foley, commanding an expedition sent by Major-General Granger to Elk Fork, Campbell County, Tenn., composed of two hundred and fifty men of the Sixth and Tenth Kentucky cavalry, surprised a camp of rebels, three hundred and fifty strong, at that place, killing thirty, wounding one hundred and seventy-six, and capturing fifty-one, without the loss of a man. All of their camp equipage was burnt, eighty horses, and a large amount of arms captured.—General Wright’s Despatch.
—Early this morning the attack on Vicksburgh was resumed, and continued all day, but without any important result. The rattle of musketry and booming of cannon was heard on all sides, but when evening came, the opposing armies were found to be in much the same positions as when they began.—(Doc. 91.)
—A skirmish took place near Clinton, La., between a party of Stuart’s Baton Rouge rebel cavalry and a detachment of National cavalry, resulting in the retreat of the latter, with a loss of one man and five horses killed.—Jackson (Miss.) Appeal.
by John Beauchamp Jones
DECEMBER 28TH.—We have no news to-day from the West. If the great battle has been fought at Vicksburg, we ought to know it to-day or to-morrow; and if the enemy be beaten, it should be decisive of the war. It would be worse than madness to continue the contest for the Union.
Several fine brass batteries were brought down from Fredericksburg last night, an indication that the campaign is over for the winter in that direction.
If we should have disasters in the West, and on the Southern seaboard, the next session of Congress, to begin a fortnight hence, will be a stormy one.
