January 23.—The gentlemen had their friend, General Lovell, to spend last night with them. I was sorry not to be able to see more of him, as I was too sick to remain in the parlour, having been occupied night and day with my dear B., who has been again very dangerously ill, with erysipelas in his wound. We are troubled about our son J., who has just been ordered to North Carolina; but we have no right to complain, as his health is good, and his position has hitherto been very pleasant.
January 2013
23rd. Friday. Minnie came down and played chess. In the evening met the boys at Fred’s and had a very sociable time. Went to church and heard Fred play on the organ—good.
Friday Jan’y 23rd 1863
It has been quite pleasant today overhead but muddy and bad at the crossings of the streets. No particular news from the Army or from any other quarter. Congress seems disposed to meet Mr Chases views and I think that his financial scheme will be adopted in the main. That is for the Gov’t to furnish the circulation for the whole country to give a uniform currency, and tax the present Bank circulation (Bills) out of existence. The Gov’t would gain the interest on such circulation as it would be equivalent to a loan without interest. The people would gain from it the enormous amt now paid for exchange, as the Govt Bills would be current everywhere and a legal tender, and to prevent any redu[n]dancy of circulation any surplus could be converted into 6 pr cent twenty year Govt Bonds. These Bonds would act like a Safty Valve to the circulation. I spent and hour or two at Doct Munsons with Mr & Mrs Bemis of Canandagua. Her husband is Lieut and stationed at one of the Forts near the City. His wife (Kate Adams) is on a visit to him. She is a very lovely woman, as she was an amiable girl. They endeavor to flatter me very much at Doct Munsons by speaking in very high terms of me almost before my face. Perhaps they feel all they say. They are certainly very good friends to me. Their company is rather more after my style than that which I am in – in this English house. But the people here do all they can to please me, and know how to set a good table. Met G W Scott of Newark NY today. He is in the State Department. Boards on NY Ave. I must call there soon.
Friday, 23d—We continued our journey again at daylight and by evening reached a point about ten miles above Vicksburg, where we drove our fleet ashore and remained on the boats all night. Fully seventy-five boats loaded with troops are assembled here, while the fleet of gunboats is lying in the river two miles below us. The country is very low here, the land on either side of the river being about twenty feet below the water in the river, which is kept within its banks by levees. The river is rising, and about three miles below us the levee on the Louisiana side has broken, and the land is being flooded.
Medium: 1 photograph : sixth-plate tintype, hand-colored ; 9.3 x 8.1 cm (case)
Gift; Tom Liljenquist; 2011;
Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photographs; Ambrotype/Tintype photograph filing series; Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
Record page for image is here.
Civil War Portrait 019
by John Beauchamp Jones
JANUARY 23D.—The Northern papers are filled with what purports to be the intercepted correspondence of Mr. Benjamin with Messrs. Mason and Slidell. Lord John Russell is berated. The Emperor of France is charged with a design to seize Mexico as a colony, and to recognize Texas separately, making that State in effect a dependency, from which cotton may be procured as an offset to British India. He says the French Consuls in Texas are endeavoring to detach Texas from the Confederacy. If this be a genuine correspondence, it will injure the South; if it be false (if the allegations be false), it will still injure us. I have no doubt of its genuineness; and that Mr. Sanders, once the correspondent of the New York Tribune, was the bearer. If Texas leaves us, so may Louisiana—and the gigantic Houmas speculation may turn out well at last.
Mr. Curry has brought forward a copyright bill; Mr. Foster, of Alabama, has introduced a bill to abolish the passport system—leaving the matter to railroad conductors.
A dispatch from Gen. Bragg assures us that our cavalry are still capturing and destroying large amounts of Rosecrans’s stores on the Cumberland River.
Col. Wall has been elected Senator from New Jersey. They say he is still pale and ill from his imprisonment, for opinion sake. I hope he will speak as boldly in the Senate as out of it.
I met Gen. Davis to-day (the President’s nephew), just from Goldsborough, where his brigade is stationed. He is in fine plumage—and I hope he will prove a game-cock.
Major-Gen. French, in command at Petersburg, is a Northern man. Our native generals are brigadiers. It is amazing that all the superior officers in command near the capital should be Northern men. Can this be the influence of Gen. Cooper? It may prove disastrous!
January23.— A band of Tories, (loyalists,) about seventy in number, “under an outlaw named Taylor,” were this day attacked by a body of rebels under Colonel Folk, in Johnson County, East-Tennessee. “The Tory cavalry and infantry were parading in a field near the Fish Springs. Colonel Folk ordered his men to swim the river and charge them. The Tories seeing this, abandoned their horses and took shelter upon the summit of a large ridge. Folk’s men were then dismounted, and charged up the ridge, completely dispersing the Tories. All of their horses were captured. Four of the Tories were killed, and a number wounded, and captured. The captured were immediately hung, by order of Colonel Folk. Taylor was killed.”—Richmond Dispatch.
—A severe snow-storm prevailed at Staunton, Charlotteville, and other points in the Shenandoah Valley, Va.—The National army and gun boats at Arkansas Post, Ark., having blown up the fortifications and demolished every thing that could be made a means of offence or defence, evacuated the place and proceeded to Vicksburgh.—Simon Cameron resigned his position as American Minister to Russia.
Bumtyn Station, Friday, Jan. 23. Spent the day in darning stockings. Listened to Brownlow read in tent. But when night came there was a scene at once ludicrous and deplorable. Music was started in the 4th Platoon tent; Parker with his fiddle, Bill Bailey with the banjo, Day’s tambourine, Byness with the bones, and Goodman’s clarinet. But Quartermaster had brought some bottled whiskey into camp and it broke up in a drunken row. * * * Deplorable, deplorable sight. Rec’d a letter from Thomas and a Milwaukee Sentinel of the 18th, mailed on the 20th inst.
Thursday, 22.—Crossed another swamp one and one-half miles wide.
Camp Reed, Jackson, Tenn.,
January 22, 1863.
I received your four-volume letter of the 5th, 12th, 13th inst. last night, and return you my sincere thanks for the time and writing material you expended in my behalf. I suppose that you now understand why you did not receive my letters.
You ask me how I like the news from Vicksburg. All right. That was only a little reconnoisance in force, which paid its way by gobbling up Arkansas post. We want to get these seceshers all together at Vicksburg and then close the war in this country. Wait about a month, if you want to hear a call for bombazine, etc. We’ll have that little town then, or a very large portion of the loyal people of Illinois will go to make that a very fertile point. By the way, aren’t you afraid that Rosecrans will get his hands full if it be true that Longstreet with 13 brigades has arrived at Chattanooga? Guess those Eastern Rebels must know better how to fight than Bragg, Price, Van Dorn, etc., at any rate I’m a little suspicious of that Longstreet and wish that one or two of these divisions here could be sent to oppose. Believe I would rather we would be whipped here than see “Rosy” beaten. There will be somebody awfully hurt though, before that latter item takes place, and Rosecrans himself will never live to read an account of it.
Staff appointments are nicer than the line business, but chance for promotion is not so great nor so honorable in my opinion. Although one does get more credit in reports, and has more influence. Anyway the chances for a captain to be detached on staff duty are very limited, and nearly always matters of outside influence. A first lieutenant’s chance on his merits are much better for several reasons. Officers are beginning to resign in a very lively manner in our regiment. Am satisfied that of the original captains, only Sid., Frank Post and myself will be left in two months from now, and I can see that both Sid. and Frank would not object to being let out gently and honorably, especially if they could happen on a good little fight shortly, and then leave. Poor fellows! One has a new wife and the other an old girl, each gets five letters a week and looks a little sicker after each letter than before. Guess I’ll have to get me one of them girls to be in the fashion, though I haven’t yet got over that one’s patting me on the shoulder when I enlisted, telling me what a fine, brave fellow, etc., I was and then marrying within three weeks after I’d gone. I’m not very desperate in consequence, but can’t think it was fair. Sid. got back from Cairo to-night with his men, minus 30, of whom some ten deserted and the remainder were left sick. Profitable trip. We are on half rations again for five days, but I managed to secure a 700 pound beef for my company, so we’ll not starve. I report more men for duty than any other company in the regiment. Call that doing pretty well when you consider that mine is a picked company. Major Phelps is here and says we will be paid off shortly. That means between now and July as I take it. Am not particular though. Uncle Sam can go to the d___l with his greenbacks, if he’ll only send us to Rosy or Vicksburg. Weather here has moderated considerably. It is 1 o’clock a.m. now and I am without coat or fire and am comfortable. I never retire before 1 or 2 o’clock any more. Am ashamed to say what time I get up. We think here that this place and Corinth will be evacuated ere long. Troops are passing through here from Corinth every day, going to Vicksburg. Every sign says that we will leave here within ten days, but all signs are unsartin. The moon to-night says a dry month. Don’t I hope she won’t fool us. This half-ration business is only so in name, the full ration has a tremendous margin for waste and men can grow fat on half rations. I do believe that they live just as well. When the 1st of January proclamation was issued a number of our officers became very much excited. Several of them talked strongly of tendering their resignations in consequence thereof, and one of them really did. But we were too strong for the d____d compromising lickspittles, and to-day you can’t hear a whimper against it. The major and adjutant were strongly opposed to it, but they dare not say so to-day. All of that excitement at home is working on the army though, and even if it requires bayonets, the good of the army demands that the agitation cease. That is the cause of all the desertions, and they are many that are occurring, and nine-tenths of the discontent and demoralization spring from the same source. A tremendous number have deserted of late and the evil is growing. Thousands would leave if we could be stationed on the border. Well, the old soldiers are very, very tired of the war. Any number of them would recognize three or four confederacies to get home, and their influence over the new men is boundless. The Confederate rank and file feels the same way. Nineteen-twentieths would vote for the United States or any other man to secure peace, but their officers and citizens control the matter. It don’t make any difference what commission you intrust your sanitary stores to for the stealings are all in the hospitals, and these sanitary commissaries all issue to any hospital that is in need.
