Following the American Civil War Sesquicentennial with day by day writings of the time, currently 1863.

Monday, January 7, 2013

Post image for Diary of Horatio Nelson Taft.

Diary of Horatio Nelson Taft.

January 7, 2013

Diary of US patent clerk Horatio Nelson Taft.

Washington Wednesday Jan’y 7th 1863

Quite cold today with a Sharp raw wind. Went to the Pay Mast[er]s office with Lieut Belden today, left his papers and we are to call tomorrow afternoon. It is very quiet in the City. No further news from the South West. Genl B F Butler is here from New Orleans still. Where he is to be placed is as yet not known. The Country cannot well spare him at this crisis. He would make an admirable Sec’y of War. His administrative abilities are not surpassed in this Country.

My Landlord is an Englishman, Mr Cadman. He rents rooms and takes some boarders. A Capt Thornet boards here, an officer of Cavalry who has seen much service in the English Army. He is an Englishman, was all through the Crimean War, has a due quantity of English brag in his composition, has a great many distinguished friends in England and tells large stories. He has been even noticed by the Duke of Richmond [!! or II?]. Cadman likes a good dinner and consequently we live pretty well. He thinks more of his dog and his gun and field sports than any Yankee could, and English fox hunting and Horse racing are his hobbies. He is in govt employ here and is an excellent Clerk. Mr Mulvany as [sic] an Artist painter at our table. He puts the delicate touches to Bradys pictures (Photographs). He is half Italian, half Irish, and on excellent terms with himself, but a great talker and an unsparing critic of other Artists productions. Lieut Belden stays with me tonight & is to breakfast with me in the morning.

Post image for Kate Cumming: A Journal of Hospital Life in the Confederate Army of Tennessee.

Kate Cumming: A Journal of Hospital Life in the Confederate Army of Tennessee.

January 7, 2013

Kate Cumming: A Journal of Hospital Life in the Confederate Army of Tennessee.

January 7.—Mrs. Brewer called to-day, and gave me one hundred dollars for the benefit of the wounded. Dr. T. received a contribution from the ladies of the place, and fifty dollars from the Hebrew M. A.S. of Mobile. He receives hundreds of dollars per day from the government . He makes the best possible use of it under the circumstances. He is right in that respect, as the government has provided it for the benefit of the men, and they ought to have it; but it is difficult to buy any thing in the way of delicacies. Eggs are not to be had at any price. He has sent foragers down into Georgia and Alabama, and I expect they will come back with plenty.

Our army has fallen back to Tullahoma. It is seventy miles south-east of Nashville. Many of our wounded are left in the hands of the enemy. I am told that the carnage on the last battle-field was dreadful.

I have heard from my brother, and he has escaped unhurt. The company of which he is a member—Garrety’s battery—has lost in killed three, and in wounded twenty-four—many of them severely.

Lieutenant Keith of the Thirty-second Alabama Regiment is killed. I pity his wife and family. His death will be a sad blow to them. I am told he was a good and brave officer.

The gallant General Hanson of Kentucky is among the slain. Of the young statesmen of Kentucky, he was one of the most gifted. He repeatedly represented it in the United States Congress, of which body he was a prominent member.

Post image for Rutherford B. Hayes.

Rutherford B. Hayes.

January 7, 2013

Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes

Wednesday, January 7, [1863]. — Appointed to command First Brigade, Second Kanawha Division. Rather a small affair — Twenty-third Regiment and Eighty-ninth Regiment, Captain Harrison’s Cavalry, Captain Gilmore’s ditto.

Reports, after several days’ desperate fighting, General Rosecrans has taken Murfreesboro and defeated Bragg.

Post image for “There is the d___st state of affairs in this country now that ’tis possible to think of.”–Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, Charles Wright Wills.

“There is the d___st state of affairs in this country now that ’tis possible to think of.”–Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, Charles Wright Wills.

January 7, 2013

Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, Charles Wright Wills, (8th Illinois Infantry)

Holly Springs, Miss., January 7, 1862 1.

The colonel and I were ordered to report here to give evidence before the “Court of Inquiry,” convened to inquire into the case of the 109th Illinois Infantry reported for disloyalty. I started from Jackson yesterday but had to lay over at Grand Junction last night waiting for a train. We got here this p.m., immediately gave our evidence, and will return to-morrow. Don’t know that they will do anything with the 109th, but am satisfied that to prevent its dishonoring our state it should be broken up. I heard General Grant say that if the charges were sustained he would transfer the loyal men to some of the old regiments, cashier the officers and make the disloyal men work their time out at Alton. Am staying tonight at Mr. Barney’s. He is a Northern man and thank God, a loyal one. He built a portion of the M. & C. R. R. and most of the M. C. R. R.. His wife is also Northern and loyal. Have been very wealthy, but the war has reduced them. They both, after seven years in the South, bear me out in the opinion I expressed in my last, of these Southern people. They have lost $50,000 worth of negroes by our army, but are willing to lose the rest for our cause. The army has all moved back to the M. & C .R. R. line except one division, Lanman’s, which occupies this place. General Grant’s headquarters are yet here. There is the d___st state of affairs in this country now that ’tis possible to think of. Every house within ten miles of the army is visited about five times a day by our soldiers, and the guerrillas (both work on the same principles) and each time visitors divide with the family the provisions and household goods. There is more stealing in one day here than the whole United States suffered in a year before the war. The correspondent of the St. Louis Democrat is writing on the same table with me for his paper, ever and anon ripping out some tall oaths because he was not at the Vicksburg battle. We heard last night, direct, that the place was taken, but we are not sure of it yet. We have lost immensely at that place but the gain is worth it. Trains are coming through from Memphis now and the army will be on full rations again shortly. The M. & O. R. R. will not be running for ten days yet. There are some eight miles of the latter road almost totally destroyed above Trenton, much of it trestle work. The sick will all leave here to-night and within five days this secesh hole (what there is left of it) will be left to its secesh inhabitants.

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1 This entry was dated wrong in the book. Apparently Wills failed to date the letter for the new year, dating it instead for the old year, a common enough error.

Post image for War Diary of Luman Harris Tenney.

War Diary of Luman Harris Tenney.

January 7, 2013

War Diary of Luman Harris Tenney.

7th. Wednesday. In the morning rode to town and took a telegram for Lt. Abbey to his wife. Went and got Rob’s boots and tried some on. Then rode back to camp again in time for supper.

Post image for Downing’s Civil War Diary.–Alexander G. Downing.

Downing’s Civil War Diary.–Alexander G. Downing.

January 7, 2013

Diary of Alexander G. Downing; Company E, Eleventh Iowa Infantry

Wednesday, 7th—The quartermaster placed a strong guard around the corral where the provision wagons were parked last night. But some of the boys of my company and of Company K were determined to have something to eat without waiting on the slowly-moving formalities. They slipped through the guard line in the night to the wagons and succeeded in getting away well loaded, having secured a small chest of tea and two boxes of crackers, which they divided among the boys of the two companies before daylight. Expecting Van Dorn’s cavalry to make a dash into town today, we formed a line of battle at 2 o’clock and awaited the attack. But no cavalry appeared, and in the evening all our teams with a strong guard were sent out to forage corn and fodder.

Post image for Vicksburg

Vicksburg

January 7, 2013

War Diary of a Union Woman in the South by Dora Richards Miller

January 7th, 1863.—I have had little to record recently, for we have lived to ourselves, not visiting or visited. Every one H. knows is absent, and I know no one. H. tells me of the added triumph since the repulse of Sherman in December, and the one paper published here shouts victory as much as its gradually diminishing size will allow. Paper is a serious want. There is a great demand for envelopes in the office where H. is. He found and bought a lot of thick and smooth colored paper, cut a tin pattern, and we have whiled away some long evenings making envelopes. I have put away a package of the best to look at when we are old. The books I brought from Arkansas have proved a treasure, but we can get no more. I went to the only book-store open; there were none but Mrs. Stowe’s “Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands.” The clerk said I could have that cheap, because he couldn’t sell her books, so I am reading it now. The monotony has only been broken by letters from friends here and there in the Confederacy. One of these letters tells of a Federal raid and says, “But the worst thing was, they would take every tooth-brush in the house, because we can’t buy any more; and one cavalry man put my sister’s new bonnet on his horse, and said ‘Get up, Jack,’ and her bonnet was gone.”

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Note: To protect Mrs. Miller’s job as a teacher in New Orleans, the diary was published anonymously, edited by G. W. Cable, names were changed and initials were often used instead of full names — and even the initials differed from the real person’s initials.

Fight for the Guidon.

January 7, 2013

Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper,Miscellaneous document sources

301

A Calvary Skirmish Between Union and Rebel Troops in Virginia – From a Sketch by Mr. Edwin Forbes. (Published January 31, 1863 in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper.)

Post image for A Diary of American Events.

A Diary of American Events.

January 7, 2013

The American Civil War,The Rebellion Record—A Diary of American Events; by Frank Moore

January 7.—The Richmond Examiner of this date, in discussing the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln, says, that it is the “most startling political crime, the most stupid political blunder, yet known in American history,” that “servile insurrection is the real, sole purpose of the Proclamation,” that it “shuts the door of retreat and repentance on the weak and timid,” and that the “Southern people have now only to choose between victory and death.”— Four hundred and fifty women and children left Washington, D. C, for Richmond, Va., and other parts of the South, under official permission.— A reconnoissance from Winchester to Woodstock, Va., was made this day by a party of the First New-York cavalry, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Von Schickfuss. — Philadelphia Inquirer.

Post image for A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary

A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary

January 7, 2013

A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, By John Beauchamp Jones

by John Beauchamp Jones

JANUARY 7TH.—To-day I was requested to aid, temporarily, in putting in operation a new bureau, created by the military authorities, not by law, entitled the Bureau of Conscription. From conscription all future recruits must be derived. I found Gen. Rains, the chief, a most affable officer; and Lieut.-Col. Lay, his next officer, was an acquaintance. I shall not now, perhaps, see so much of the interior of this moving picture of Revolution; my son, however, will note important letters. It is said that Sumner’s corps (of Burnside’s army) has landed in North Carolina, to take Wilmington. We shall have news soon.

We are sending troops rapidly from Virginia to North Carolina.

The Northern papers say the following dispatch was sent to Washington by our raiding Stuart: “Gen. Meigs will in future please furnish better mules; those you have furnished recently are very inferior.” He signed his own name.

A large body of slaves passed through the city to-day, singing happily. They had been working on the fortifications north of the city, and go to work on them south of it. They have no faith in the efficacy of Lincoln’s Emancipation.

But it is different in Norfolk; 4000 enfranchised slaves marched in procession through the town the other day in a sort of frantic jubilee. They will bewail their error; and so will the Abolitionists. They will consume the enemy’s commissary stores; and if they be armed, we shall get their arms.

Lee and Beauregard were telegraphed to-day in relation to the movement on Wilmington; and the President had the cabinet with him many hours.

Gen. Rains is quite certain that the fall of New Orleans was the result of treachery.

By the emancipation, Gen. Wise’s county, Princess Ann, is excepted—and so are Accomac and Northampton Counties; but I have no slaves. All I ask of the invaders is to spare my timber, and I will take care of the land—and I ask it, knowing the request will never be known by them until the war is over.

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