Saturday, 28th.—This morning Company B concluded to have some meat. In a very few minutes they had five fine hogs dead. A few minutes later they were under guard, and on their way to General Taylor’s quarters. Capture of the Indianola confirmed, but was so badly damaged had to be left in charge of an officer and a few men to be repaired as soon as possible, and then taken to the mouth of Red River, to be added to the Confederate fleet there. But the Yanks, finding it out, played a regular Yankee trick. Taking a large flat boat, and sticking up empty flour barrels for chimneys, made it to look as much like a gunboat as possible, it was towed down as near the rebel batteries as they could come in safety, and turned loose. Soon the very earth trembled from the rapid discharges of the heaviest rebel guns along the river. It being so dark, they could only see the bulk. The monster glided swiftly on, passing all the batteries, it being so light, that if struck, it would not sink. Soon it made its appearance at Grand Gulf, when the batteries there opened with redoubled fury; still it passed on. The officer in charge of the “Indianola,” thinking such an impregnable monster was coming, blew up the Indianola and left without further ceremony.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
February 28 — This evening the Yankees drove our pickets in again and advanced with a considerable force. We were ordered out immediately to resist the advancing enemy, and moved down the Valley pike with the Seventh, Eleventh, and Twelfth Regiments of Virginia Cavalry and Witcher’s Battalion of Kentuckians. We went as far as Woodstock, and there we learned that the Yanks did not advance any farther than Fisher’s Hill, ten miles below Woodstock. It was then about dark, and we returned to camp.
From Colonel Lyon’s Letters.
Feb. 28, 1863.—The water is very high, and rising about one foot in 24 hours. It is at least 30 feet above its ordinary height last fall. We have built a bridge of logs over the ravine (see map), as the water rose, and I think it must be 15 feet high and 20 to 25 rods long. The logs are laid up crib fashion, with plank on top. A rise of four feet more will cover the ridge nearest the river and drive our troops out of the fort. A rise of five or six feet will let steamers run up to our camp. They could come up now through the ravine were it not for the trees.
The weather is delightful, just like your most pleasant May. This is a great country for frogs. They keep up a terrible clatter every night.
February 28th [1863]. Intended to go and help Katy Wilkinson pack to go out with her mother, but it rained too hard. Have written two letters, to Mrs. Chilton and Claude on soft Blockade paper, we call it, which are to go in a spool of cotton. It is a great deprivation not to be able to go beyond these hateful lines with the Wilkinsons. But I need money. Mrs. Dameron offered me some yesterday, but I can not borrow. Mrs. Randolph, whose husband owes us for a few months’ rent, offered to raise it for me, but times are so hard for people who are out of business, and who came here strangers as they did and who are cut off from friends who might aid them, that we told her we would not take it from her, even should she get it for us. I felt grateful to both for their heartfelt interest in us and feel that we have made friends for life. The Campos people who owe us a great deal are also in trouble, and thank us for not troubling them. Mr. Lancaster went off in fright when the Yankees came, without paying us. Mrs. Norton has money owed by Mrs. Chilton in her possession, but we can not bear to ask for it. It is ours really, but she does not offer it. So here we are a fixture, where our hearts are almost breaking. From the little store we had left, an acquaintance borrowed $300 “just until my husband comes in”; that was six weeks ago, and no word of it yet. I would not ask for so small a sum, but I greatly fear we shall need it. I have visited her twice and she has been here and members of her family, and it would be something for an outsider to pity us for if he could note our hope that it might be offered us. I would pity anyone who had been reduced to such straits as we have. All through others, too, and a weakness we have in not being able to ask for our own money. If I could get outside these hateful lines, I could use my Confederate money, and Claude, poor fellow, could perhaps send me some more, even if we could not get to Texas. Ah, well, some people are born for both small and large mishaps.
But enough of this—we must stay here until the Blockade is over, I suppose—we have expended within a few dollars our whole stock in laying in provisions lately. I feel, and so does Ginnie, the honest principle to purchase what we eat. I find myself, since the hard thoughts have taken possession of me, doing without everything at the table which we have not helped to buy. These are homely details indeed, when the Muse of History may wander at will, and dignify my pages with the hopes, fears, sacrifices and misfortunes of nations. Garibaldi, in Italy; Louis Napoleon in Mexico; English operatives perishing with hunger; Exeter Hall jubilant and triumphant over our Southern distress and what they call the “Freed negro race”; battles lost and won; cities captured and recaptured; a virgin soil bathed with the blood of its sons; a nation bathed in its tears; a new Confederacy and a new flag born into the world. Ah, Stars and Bars! How many years will it be before you float in an unjust cause over fields to which you have no right! All these things and more the Tragic Muse and her sisters may gather and record in this awful year of ’63— and here am I penning the common items which belong to a suppressed and narrow life; the pitiful details; the painful platitudes; the wearisome monotony incident to the everyday life of two women. Well, I have some right to make my cry go up with the general voice, more especially that I feel indeed that I “have no language, but a cry.”
Mrs. Dameron stayed all day with us. A sweet, earnest little soul. She is not demonstrative, but we have been made to feel that she is fond of us. I rely upon her wonderfully, but we have few thoughts in common. Mrs. Roselius spent the afternoon with us, and I found myself again unaware a champion of a religion. A friend of Mrs. R——’s has joined the Catholic Church and she has “ceased to respect her.” So runs the everyday stream. We all think differently and hate each other because we can not see alike. With the standing point changed, the view would alter, too. The more I see of life, the more lonely I feel. I shall never, never be tempted into a church—a membership I mean—sectarianism awes and disgusts me, yet I often, often covet that brotherhood feeling which the members of one association seem to enjoy. A common cause; whether it be religion, politics or business binds men, though they may hate all other causes beside. My ideas meet nobody’s, whether they are stirred by patriotism (by which I mean loving all that is good—not claiming all among my country’s people, boasting only of what is good—not claiming all good and a willingness to submit to much— to all trials—for the common good and honor and defence of home), by religion, or by any of the high or low possibilities which range our daily pathway. My ideas meet no one’s, I say again, and I often feel an isolation of heart even when meeting with general kindness. By religion I cannot understand anything but a kindly interpretation of human action; a gentle forbearance with all efforts of the human heart toward God— whether those efforts be Catholic or Protestant. It is with a feeling of profound wonder and awe even, with which I behold the common idea of hugging salvation for one’s own people and communities—and committing all others to—to say the least of it, to some undefined horrors. The general satisfaction under such a state of things, I say, awes me.
I wish I could have known a certain poet who lived here before the war—Capt. Harry Flash. I wish I knew Tennyson, Hawthorne, George Eliot (Miss Evans) and I wish I could journey back far enough on the pathway of time to meet the large, untrammeled gaze of Edmund Burke. I have admired the sermons, rather the philosophizings, of Ellery Channing; and those of the Right Reverend Doctor Clapp of this city; to me they seem imbued with Christ’s spirit, though they differ in letter from the churches. The “Great Harmonia” of Jackson, the Spiritualist, is a work which has met and convinced my reason, soothed my anxieties, unraveled my perplexities, pleased my imagination, lifted my aspirations, reconciled much of paradox to my mind and tinged with far-off hope my longings. These books my friends condemn. All authors that I love, fall under the ban with my acquaintances. I allow latitude—and take it—and yet it is a lonely life that I lead now. I have known the bliss of meeting of thought’ but it is gone, and never on this side of eternity can it be mine again. Our opinions make us—I cannot yield mine.
I had had a sort of enthusiastic regard for Beauregard, but to-day I heard that his wife has much need to complain of him—I was told by one who is familiar with his social relations—in an instant the feeling in my heart for this hero vanished, and a pained one of disappointment took its place—so we go on in life until we have nothing left. In my walk this afternoon I met little Charley Mushaway(?), a little dark-eyed, fair-haired beauty, who cheers for Beauregard and Stonewall Jackson constantly. I did not wish him to cheer for Beauregard to-day. A man is as nothing to me who sins against the purity and divinity which sits by his hearthstone—Love. Saw Mrs. Wilkinson and the girls—told us much of matters going on outside of the lines. She is very much changed—grown completely gray in one month. She went out some months ago. The death of her husband at Manassas having reached her as a rumor, she went out to ascertain its truth. She had much difficulty in getting a passport out and has now been arrested for not taking the oath upon returning to see her children. Some faces relax, even under great grief, but she seems even to have forgotten how to smile. She is going out with her children, whenever the upstarts will let her. Our soldiers outside are far from starvation. They have food and clothes, even coffee in plenty. Many of our young privates, who are from the best families in the land, miss thousands of home comforts, but there is no desponding; no lack of spirit and determination to stand until the last man, rather than to give up to the Yankees.
28th. Got up the rations and issued for ten days. Overlifted and strained my back and sides, makes me lame. After we got through I cleaned up. Charlie Crarey came down, got all the business straightened up, thinking I would go home Monday morning.
Saturday, 28th—Our regiment was mustered for pay at 9 o’clock this morning, and at 10 o’clock we had general inspection with all accouterments on, by the inspector general of the Seventeenth Army Corps, General William E. Strong.1 I got an order today from the captain on the sutler for $1.50.
1 Iowa may well be proud of the Third Brigade of the Sixth Division, Col. M. M. Crocker commanding. It is composed of the following troops, Viz.: The Eleventh, Thirteenth, Fifteenth and Sixteenth Iowa Infantry. It turned out for inspection 1,935 rank and file. • • • Since I have been a soldier, it has so happened that I have seen many brigades of many different army corps, both in the Eastern and Western armies, but never have I seen a brigade that could compete with this Iowa brigade. I am not prejudiced in the slightest degree. I never saw any of the officers or soldiers of the command until the day when I saw them in line of battle prepared for inspection. • • • I cannot say that any one regiment of the brigade appeared better than another—they all appeared so well. The Eleventh was the strongest. It had 528 enlisted men and 20 officers present for duty, the Thirteenth 470 enlisted men and 22 officers, the Fifteenth 428 men and 29 officers, the Sixteenth 405 men and 33 officers. In the entire brigade there was not to exceed a dozen men unable to be present for inspection. —Roster of Iowa Soldiers, Infantry, Vol. II, p. 279.
Memphis, Saturday, Feb. 28. The last of February, consequently mustered for pay at 9 A. M. by Lieutenant S. F. Clark. Then opened ranks and inspected by Lieutenants Clark, Hood and Simpson, the latter being reinstated. Ordered to prepare for an inspection to-morrow.
28th.—To-day we are all at home. It is amusing to see, as each lady walks into the parlour, where we gather around the centre-table at night, that her work-basket is filled with clothes to be repaired. We are a cheerful set, notwithstanding. Our winding “reel,” too, is generally busy. L. has a very nice one, which is always in the hands of one or the other, preparing cotton for knitting. We are equal to German women in that line. Howitt says that throughout Germany, wherever you see a woman, you see the “everlasting knitting;” so it is with Confederate women. I only wish it was “everlasting,” for our poor soldiers in their long marches strew the way with their wornout socks.
Saturday Feb 28th 1863
There does not seem to be anything in particular to note down. We hear of some skirmishing with the rebels at various points but nothing of much consequence. At Vicksburgh, where perhaps the largest forces are opposed to each other, I think the plan is not to attack the Batteries but to invest the place and cut off their supplies and starve them out. No attack on Charleston or Savannah yet. There appears to be some trouble with the Commanders as to precedence or rank. Genls Hunter and Foster are the officers. This question of rank together with the jealousy existing betwen West Point officers and Volunteers has led to an infinite deal of trouble during this war. Some Genls have been so unpatriotic as to wish to see some other Genl defeated rather than assist him to be successful. For this and for acting in this way, Fitz John Porter was cashiered and dismissed the service. He was a Maj Genl. There are now about twenty Indians here from the western borders of Minnesota holding a talk with the Prest and the Indian Commissioner. I think there is but little sympathy for them anywhere since the Massacre up there last summer. Mrs Swisshelm stated that not less than fifteen hundred men, women, and children fell victims. She lives in St Cloud Min. It is said that the Indians were instigated by the Southern rebels to rise on the whites.
February 28th. 1863.
Newport News is a military post, and is of no importance in any other sense. There were no villages or cities here previous to the war. Now there are quite a number of temporary buildings, and barracks to accommodate 60,000 men. It is an ideal camping ground, lying on the north bank of Hampton Roads and inclining gently to the northeast. The soil is light sand, which absorbs the rain as fast as it falls and is never muddy. The Ninth Corps, composed of forty-eight regiments, is extended in a direct line along the beach, covering about two miles in length. Stringent rules have been adopted, which, if carried out, will greatly enhance the efficiency of the men in field operations. We are to have revielle at six, when every man must turn out to roll call; breakfast call at seven, when we fall in line, march to the cook’s quarters and receive our allowance of “grub.” Immediately after breakfast we are marched to the creek, where every man is required to wash hands, face and neck. From eight to half-past, police duty, or cleaning up in front of tents; from eight-thirty to ten-thirty, company drill; from this time until noon, clean guns, brasses and do any little jobs we may have on hand; dinner at twelve; from one-thirty to two-thirty, skirmish drill; from three to four, battalion drill, after which is dress parade; at eight-thirty, tattoo, or go to bed; at nine, taps, or lights out. Saturday is set apart for washing and cleaning up generally. Sunday morning at eight o’clock is inspection of arms, and at two o’clock divine service.
Some of the boys think the regular routine is reversed in our case—fighting first and drill afterward. Poor fellows; I expect they will see fighting enough yet. I have not seen a newspaper since our arrival, and know as little of what is going on in the world as did Cruso on his desert island.
