Tuesday, 6th.—Got off Sand Mountain to-day; been marching on it all this year.
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Washington Tuesday Jan’y 6th 1863
The weather has been delightfuly warm, dry & pleasant every day since the New Year came in until today. It has rained all the afternoon and I got some wet in comeing from the office without my umbrella. That article is a servant that is frequently absent when most wanted, a fair type of the servants obtained at the “Contraband Depot” in this City, only the advantage is decidedly on the side of the umbrella for that is entirely subject to your will and pleasure, and will go if you carry it, and at least you cannot blame it for not being where you want it to be and is always ready to do its duty. Not so the “Contraband.” He will go if you drive him, but is never quite ready or willing when there is work to do. His whole idea of Freedom is, “Nothing to do and plenty to eat.” Union faces look brighter today. There is now no doubt of our great success in Tennessee & at Vicksburgh. “All hail the Stars and Stripes.” It is a pity that the Rebel Army now in V.A. was not on the Miss. or out of the atmosphere of Washington where the (Quid nuncs) of the Govt could not assume to control our Armies which contend with it. All our Generals are successful except those on the Potomac. Got letter from home today. “Value” has been rcd all Safe, contents duly appreciated, ought to have sent “Willie” a Book. Must send him one by mail. Willie must not be neglected. He will make a man yet if he is rightly trained up.
In our camp was located Battery L, 5th U. S. Regulars. The battery boys did not like being inside the guard line of volunteers. Would run the guard line, making trouble for us. A sergeant of the battery, under the influence of drink, attempted to run the guard. Was halted, grabbed the sentinel’s musket, resulted in the sergeant’s being badly wounded. The wooden plug in the muzzle, with the bullet, passed through the sergeant’s body. He was not killed. (After a time he recovered.) After that event the battery boys and the 18th Regiment were friends. All were sorry over the event. No one blamed the sentinel. Cold rain and snow making the life of a soldier a very disagreeable one in tents, sleeping on the ground. Deep mud and very sticky all through our camp.
January 6th. Last night, while on guard duty, I was taken suddenly ill. Had to be relieved from duty. Placed in an old barn, used for a field hospital, with a leaky old roof, the rain coming down on me. Colonel, I was informed, came to the barn, saw my condition, ordered me carried to a general hospital known as Stuart’s Mansion, afterward named the Jarvis Hospital, at the west end of Baltimore. At the hospital I was examined by a surgeon who pronounced my illness typhoid fever and the pleurisy. I was placed in Ward 4. I was very ill. My side was cupped for the pleurisy.
Camp Reynolds, Near Gauley Bridge, January 6, 1863.
Dear Mother: — This is a rainy day — the first we have had in a great while. I never saw finer weather than we have had. It has enabled us to finish our log cabins and we are now in most comfortable quarters. It would surprise you to see what tidy and pretty houses the soldiers have built with very little except an axe and the forest to do it with. My house is a double cabin under a roof about sixty feet long by twenty wide with a space between the cabins protected from weather.
I see that the One Hundred and Thirteenth is ordered off, so I suppose Laura is at home again. I shall write to her in reply to her good letter soon. I think not less but more of her since she has made so valuable an addition to the kinship.
I am writing to Dr. Joe to bring Lucy out here, if he thinks well of it. There are three or four officers’ wives in this quarter now. .
Affectionately,
Rutherford.
Mrs. Sophia Hayes.
Tuesday, January 6. [1863]. — Very fine weather for a week past, and I am busy digging ditches, building walks, roads, bridges, and quarters. A pleasant occupation.
Great fighting at Murfreesboro; heavy losses on our side, but the general result not yet known. Rainy today. I must build a skiff to get over to the brick house to headquarters easily.
During past year we have received sixty-eight recruits; discharged sixty-six; killed in action forty-seven; died of wounds twenty; died of disease fifteen. [Total] deaths eighty-two. Total loss aggregates one hundred and forty-eight. Net loss eighty.
January 6 — Early this morning we renewed our march, and little before sunset we arrived at our old camp a mile east of New Market. It rained nearly all day. We traveled about one hundred and fifty miles on this little scout, and all that was accomplished on the whole expedition, discoverable by a private, is we stirred up the Yanks, and our cavalry on the night that we passed through Petersburg captured a large sheet iron bake-oven on wheels, and brought it along to camp.
January 6, Tuesday. Got off dispatches this morning ordering the ironclads south to strengthen Du Pont in his attack on Charleston, which he intends to take, —then Savannah, if not too long delayed, when the ironclads must go around to Pensacola.
Wilkes is not doing as much as we expected. I fear he has more zeal for and finds it more profitable to capture blockade-runners than to hunt for the Alabama. Lord Lyons is preferring complaints against him for want of courtesy, when he is really flinging on him British insults. There is not much love lost between him and John Bull. If Seward would square up firmly we could make Bull behave better.
6th. Delos returned from town and told me of his visit with his sister. Sent my regards and explanation. John got into the guard house for being away without a pass. R. and I went to Mr. Bateham’s, met Libbie Kinney, Will Rice and sister, and Miss Cohen. Went to meeting in the evening, concert for prayer. Walked home. Letter from home, wanting me to come home.
The Picayune gives a long account of victories in Tennessee and at Vicksburg; we have slain many, taken prisoners many, and sunk ships. A report was circulated that the Texans had recovered Galveston, sunk some Federal vessels and captured others. This was believed by Confederates and hooted at by Unionists. Bets are passed but I feel in no humor for such things. We asked Mr. Roselius, our neighbor, of the news and were advised by him to believe no ” such trash” as that, but on the morning of the 5th of January the Yankee Delta admits the truth. The Harriet Lanewas boarded just after the moon had set and, after a desperate struggle, captured. The Westerfield, Commodore Renshaw, was threatened, but he blew up the vessel. The Delta claims a glorious martyrdom for him and his crew, as they were all destroyed with the vessel, but report proclaims the loss of life an accident, the blowing up of the boat only being intended. We had but four gunboats—half launch, half old steamers—yet the Federals here claim that their “fleet” escaped from them. Two companies of the 42nd Massachusetts regiment were captured, also two transports. This fight has made a profound and awful impression on me. It was bold, it was glorious! I can imagine our men, on their insecure crafts, stealing out into the bay under cover of darkness; the suspense, the surprise, the desperate, bloody struggle, the contending emotions of fear and hate, the confusion, the triumph, and, last of all, the horrible explosion. Ah, when will they let us go in peace and such things cease! Mrs. Roselius, as great a Southerner as exists, comes over every day to talk her “good Southern talk,” she says. She leaves her husband, who, though a native of Louisiana, is a Unionist. We have a sort of contention on political subjects whenever we meet. He wanted to bring some good Federal officers in. I told him “that he had better not try it,” and Ginnie laughingly said “if he could find a good one he might bring him in.”
January.—Grandmother went to Aunt Mary Carr’s to tea to-night, very much to our surprise, for she seldom goes anywhere. Anna said she was going to keep house exactly as Grandmother did, so after supper she took a little hot water in a basin on a tray and got the tea-towels and washed the silver and best china but she let the ivory handles on the knives and forks get wet, so I presume they will all turn black. Grandmother never lets her little nice things go out into the kitchen, so probably that is the reason that everything is forty years old and yet as good as new. She let us have the Young Ladies’ Aid Society here to supper because I am President. She came into the parlor and looked at our basket of work, which the older ladies cut out for us to make for the soldiers. She had the supper table set the whole length of the dining room and let us preside at the table. Anna made the girls laugh so, they could hardly eat, although they said everything was splendid. They said they never ate better biscuit, preserves, or fruit cake and the coffee was delicious. After it was over, the “dear little lady” said she hoped we had a good time. After the girls were gone Grandmother wanted to look over the garments and see how much we had accomplished and if we had made them well. Mary Field made a pair of drawers with No. 90 thread. She said she wanted them to look fine and I am sure they did. Most of us wrote notes and put inside the garments for the soldiers in the hospitals.
Sarah Gibson Howell has had an answer to her letter. His name is Foster—a Major. She expects him to come and see her soon.
All the girls wear newspaper bustles to school now and Anna’s rattled to-day and Emma Wheeler heard it and said, “What’s the news, Anna?” They both laughed out loud and found that “the latest news from the front” was that Miss Morse kept them both after school and they had to copy Dictionary for an hour. War prices are terrible. I paid $3.50 to-day for a hoop skirt.
