Friday, 6th.—Ground frozen this morning. Nothing has been doing for several days, except some little cannonading along the river.
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Friday, 6th—Came to Vernon and camped. I went out and got some fodder and made beds, but did not get to enjoy it long. Bout 1 o’clock started and came to Duck River, built fires of the fence on river bank. Our squadron sent on scout eight miles, got back just after day. Found them swimming the horses and taking the rigging over in a boat flat. We were then sent on picket. A ford was found and the Brigade crossed over. Camped one mile from the river. Crossed near Centerville.
Feb. 6th. Since my last entry nothing has occurred worthy of note. This morning at ten thirty all hands were called to up anchor; got under way and stood down the river; at seven P. M., came to anchor off Pilot Town.
Stoneman Station, Va.,
Friday, Feb. 6, 1863.
Dear E.:—
Wicks’ golden opinions of “Little Norton” may do very well to repeat at home. Perhaps he thinks, as he has said so much for me, I should return the compliment and praise him up to the skies. I can’t see the point. I don’t thank anybody to say that I have done more than I agreed to do, more than a soldier’s duty, and if any one says I have not done my duty, send him to me to say it. I don’t know what Wicks saw me do at Malvern Hill. I didn’t see him at all in the fight. I was under the impression that he was “taken with a sunstroke” just before the fight commenced. At Bull Run the boys say he did “fight like the devil.”
I don’t care anything about what he told you of my smoking. I could have told you that long ago if I had thought you cared anything about it. You all knew when I left home that I used tobacco some, and Mother and L. particularly urged me to quit it. I wouldn’t make any promises about it and continued to smoke, but a year ago last Christmas I did quit, and then I wrote home and told all about it. Well, not the first one said so much as “I’m glad,” or advised me to stick to it. I waited a month or so and heard nothing, and then I thought if that was all you cared about it, if it made no difference to any of you, it didn’t to me, so I went at it again. If Wicks had told you that I chewed two pounds of plug a week and a pound of opium, drank gin and gambled, would you have believed him? Well, if it makes any difference to you I will just say for your comfort that I don’t.
I am glad to hear that Wicks is looking so well. The boys who saw him in Alexandria said there was nothing left of him but his mustache. If I get down so low as that, I would not be much to load down an ambulance or a hog-car, would I?
No, siree, I wouldn’t take a discharge now if I could get it. You need not trouble yourself about that. If I did want one, I fancy (pardon my vanity) I could play off on the doctors and get it, but I don’t want it, and I would kick a man that would offer me one. As to being the “captain’s friend” I don’t see the point. I despise him too much for that. Personally I have no fault to find. He has always treated me well, perhaps favored me some, but I am not the friend of the man who always has the piles or something of the sort when a fight is coming off. At Hanover Court House he couldn’t keep up, at Gaines’ Mill he lay behind a tree and laughed while the men fell all round him. At Malvern he shouted retreat and ran like a greyhound and got shot in the back with a three-cornered something. Last summer at Fredericksburg when we expected a fight he was too weak to march, and we didn’t see him again till after Antietam. At this last at Fredericksburg he did go in and acted something like a man, the first and last time he has done so. When we moved last, expecting another battle, he couldn’t go, he had the piles. Should I be the “captain’s friend”? I don’t know that he has but one in the company, and he is a sort of sucker. Mrs. A. is a woman, a true woman. I respect her very much, and so does every man in the company. Nothing but that respect for her feelings prevents the company from complaining of him and having him cashiered for cowardice.
I think some of my letters must have been lost. Did you never get the one that told of Henry’s watch being lost? I felt so bad about that. I would have bought a dozen rather than lost that. I kept it till we got to Antietam, waiting for a chance to send it by express, but finally after getting Mary’s permission, sent it by mail, and it was never heard from. I took all the precautions I could to make it safe, did it up in a little box like an ambrotype, but the last I heard it had not arrived, and if it had, they would have told me.
I wrote you in my last how our march terminated. Did Wicks tell you anything about camp lice? I do not know that I have ever said a word about them in all my letters, but they are so plenty here that they are the subject of half the standing jokes and bons mots in camp. I presume you never saw one. They are the soldier’s pest. I never saw one till we got to Yorktown. They resemble head lice in appearance, but not in habits. They don’t go near the hair, but stay in the clothes, shirt and drawers. There is no way to get rid of them, but to scald them out. They will hide in the seams and nit in every hiding place possible. Cold water won’t faze them. They multiply like locusts and they will fat on “onguentum.” At the time we left the Peninsula they were plenty, and until we got to Antietam, more than a month, no one had a chance to wash his clothes in hot water. I do not believe there was a man in our brigade, officer, private or nigger, but was lousy. They grow to enormous size and are the most cunning and most impudent of all things that live. During the late snow storm the boys, for want of something else to do, made sleds of their jaw bones, and slid down the bank of the railroad. The other night after supper I was sitting by the fire smoking a cigar, when I felt something twitch at my pants’ leg. I looked down and there was one of the “crumbs” with a straw in his mouth, standing on his hind legs and working his claws round like a crab on a fish line. I gave a kick at him, but he dodged it and sticking up his cigar squeaked out, “Give me a light.”
I woke up the other night and found a regiment of them going through the manual of arms on my back. Just as I woke the colonel gave the command “charge bayonets,” and the way they let drive at my sirloin was a proof of their capacity. Any one of them can throw himself into a hollow square and bite at the four corners. I would be willing to let them have what blood and meat they wanted to eat, but the devils amuse themselves nights by biting out chunks and throwing them away. Well, this is a pretty lousy leaf, ain’t it? Most likely the next one will be something different if it is not.
Joe (my housemaid) is sitting by the fire picking his teeth with a bayonet and swearing at the beef. He says it is a pity it was killed, it was tough enough to stand many a long march yet. Well, it is tough. When Burnside got stuck in the mud, the artillery harness all broke, and the only way they could get the guns out was for the men to cut their rations of beef into strips, and make tugs out of them.
February 6, Friday. Nothing of special importance at the Cabinet. Seward was absent, and I therefore called on him respecting his circular dispatch concerning the blockade at Galveston. His chief clerk, Mr. Hunter, was coy and shy. Neither he nor Mr. Seward were certain it had been sent. Some dispatches had not been sent. Seward said he had made all the alterations, but the clerk had not done his errand properly, did not tell him I objected, etc., etc. The Department seemed in confusion. Hunter watched Seward closely and could recollect only what Seward recollected. When I touched on the principles involved, I found Seward inexcusably ignorant of the subject of blockade. He admitted he had not looked into the books, had not studied the subject, had relied on Hunter. Hunter said he had very little knowledge and no practical experience on these matters except what took place during the Mexican blockade. Made Seward send for Wheaton; read to him a few passages. He seemed perplexed, but thought his circular dispatch as modified could do little harm. I am apprehensive that he has, in his ostentatious, self-assuming way, committed himself in conversation, and knows not how to get out of the difficulty. He says Fox told him the blockade was raised at Galveston. It is one of those cases where the Secretary of State has written a hasty letter without proper inquiry or knowledge of facts, and my fears are that he has made unwarranted admissions. After firing off his gun, he learns his mistake, — has “gone off half-cocked.”
February 6—Nothing to eat yet. Wortheim, W. Eagle and myself went out foraging, to buy something to eat. We got to one house and there was no one at home, but in the yard there were two chickens, which we captured, for we were afraid they would bite us. We went to the next house and ate our breakfast. One of the ladies asked us where we got those chickens. I told her that we bought them at the house before we got there. She told us she lived there and that there was nobody at home. I then told her the truth, paid her for them and left. The next house we got to we bought a ham, a peck of meal, a peck of sweet potatoes and some turnips. We took dinner in this house. We then returned to camp. We had a good reception from our mess, as they had still nothing to eat.
To Mrs. Lyon
February 6, 1863.—We received the intelligence on Tuesday afternoon at one o’clock that the rebels were advancing on Donelson. The only forces there were the 83d Illinois, Colonel Harding, and Flood’s 2d Illinois Battery of four pieces. Colonel Harding had also a 32pounder siege gun in position. One of his companies was absent, so that the whole defensive force there was less than 700 men, with five pieces of artillery.
We could not ascertain whether the rebels were in large force, and we apprehended that the attack there was only a feint, and that the real point of attack would be Fort Henry. Colonel Lowe hesitated, therefore, to send reinforcements until the necessity was apparent.
Finally we got a dispatch that the battle had commenced, and I was ordered to push rapidly over there (it is fifteen miles from here) with the Thirteenth. Soon after we left the telegraph wire was cut, which showed that the enemy were in our path. Colonel Lowe started reinforcements to me. Six miles this side of Fort Donelson my advance guard was fired into and fell back to the main body. This was after dark. I formed a line of battle and reconnoitered in front. The first men that advanced in front of our lines were fired upon and wounded. We reconnoitered carefully in front, and hearing heavy firing renewed at Donelson, I pushed on with the main body, moving slowly, with skirmishers deployed to the front .
In the meantime Colonel Lowe learned that we were attacked and sent me three pieces of artillery and more infantry. I moved slowly and cautiously to within two miles of Donelson, occasionally sending couriers in advance to ascertain the situation of things at the fort, for up to this time we had no intelligence from there. We passed the point where the rebel force on our road had been stationed. We learned from citizens that they had 300 or 400 men there, who retreated on our approach.
About midnight one of our couriers returned with intelligence that the road was clear, and we moved on to the fort. We found, when we arrived there, that the place was attacked between one and two o’clock by at least four thousand rebels with from ten to thirteen pieces of artillery. They were commanded by a Major General Wheeler and two Brigadiers, Forrest and Wharton. The fight lasted until night. The rebels surrounded the place, their lines running from the river bank above to the river bank below the town, which is surrounded by high hills. What is called Fort Donelson is really the village of Dover. The fortifications are abandoned and did not figure in the fight . They charged repeatedly upon our men, but were invariably repulsed. The history of this war shows no such fighting as was done by the 83d Illinois and Flood’s Battery. Without fortifications, except slight breastworks improvised for the occasion, inferior in artillery, and 700 against 4,000, they fought for hours, through ravines, over hills, through the streets of the village, behind houses, in companies, by squads, and often single-handed, they contested every inch of ground until night ended the conflict. And to render the condition of these gallant men more desperate, at four o’clock the battery was out of ammunition.
The regiment was never in battle before, but every man fought like a veteran. At night, with their lines drawn closely around the town, and their batteries all in position to renew the attack in the morning, the enemy sent in a demand to Colonel Harding to surrender the place or take the consequences. The Colonel replied that it was against his orders to surrender and he must therefore ‘take the consequences.’ All the time I knew, as did also Colonel Harding, that several gunboats were on their way up the Cumberland river and would reach Donelson on Tuesday evening. The rebels knew nothing of this.
The gunboats arrived about eight o’clock and opened fire with eight-inch Dahlgrens upon the rebels, scattering them in dismay out of our reach. Early in the morning we found that they were rapidly retreating southeast, in the direction from whence they came. The slaughter amongst them was terrible. The morning after we arrived there I looked over the ground and dead bodies could be seen in every direction. Up to Wednesday evening our men had buried 125 dead rebels, and they were still being found and brought in. We find the houses all along the line of their retreat filled with their wounded, and they took off all that they could move. Their killed will, I think, amount to 200 and their wounded to 600 or 800. The most remarkable circumstance of the whole affair is that the loss on our side was only 11 killed and 41 wounded!
This battle was fought a mile or more from old Fort Donelson. We have since learned that it was their intention to capture Fort Donelson and then move their whole force on to Fort Henry and take that fort also. There are great stores of supplies and provisions, as well as arms, here. Hence they threw out a strong force on the Fort Henry road to retard the advance of reinforcements from here; and then when they got Fort Donelson they could throw their whole force on us, they thought, and exterminate us. It was well planned—the theory was perfect—but it did not work well.
Yesterday we returned to our old quarters. Before leaving Donelson, however, we saw the Twenty-Second Wisconsin, which, with 20,000 to 30,000 other troops, were there on their way to Nashville and Murfreesboro. They have buried 70 men and left 150 sick behind them. The regiment is not in a good condition. I marched the Thirteenth down to the boat on which was the Twenty-Second, drew up in line, gave them a few rounds of cheers, said ‘Good-bye,’ and left for home.
They got news in camp after we left for Fort Donelson that we were fighting, and the fact that Colonel Lowe was constantly pushing reinforcements to me seemed to confirm it, and the women got quite nervous about us.
6th. Called at the captain’s quarters. Told me Fannie Hudson was coming that day at noon. Am glad. Would I could see Will, too.
Friday, 6th—We hear that we are to move up the river to an island where General McPherson’s command is. About one hundred transports with troops aboard are tied up along the levee on the Louisiana side, awaiting orders to go up the river, while still others are being loaded. The plan is to go into camp at different points to do garrison duty, making it safer for fleets to pass at certain points.
Buntyn Station, Friday, Feb. 6. Temperature what they would call quite sharp, but indicative of a fine day. Most of the, snow disappeared during the day. Health excellent. Spelling school in the evening at G. Thomas’s shanty.
