Sunday, April 26. — Went up to Bank’s Ford with General Meade, General Benham, Captain Weed, and Captain Jay. General Hooker and Captain Comstock went as far as Falmouth, where they stopped. Got back to camp about 5.30 o’clock. Day was pleasant. The works at Bank’s Ford have been strengthened by traverses, etc. The enemy have a battery of five guns covering the river above the dam. Major Cassin telegraphed that the train was ready at 2.30 to-day.
April 2013
Headquarters Second Vt. Brigade,
Union Mills, Va.,
April 26, 1863.
Dear Free Press:
It is more than two weeks now since orders came for the Second brigade to be in readiness to take the field; but we still linger on the banks of the muddy Occoquan. The order to make ready was promptly complied with. The extra baggage of the officers (wives included in some cases), was sent in to Alexandria or Washington; the tents were turned back to the quartermasters; the men overhauled their “cotton bureaus” and discarded superfluities with Spartan rigor; and the feeble men were sent into the city hospitals. Over a hundred men were thus sent in from this regiment, of whom many would probably be now on duty if they had stayed in camp, and many others in a very few days more, who will now have to go through the circumlocution office of the hospitals and convalescent camp; and some will hardly more than rejoin the regiment, if at all, before their term of service will be out. But the orders of the medical authorities were peremptory. The brigade was to be “cleared for action,” and it was done. We have been ready to sail in, any day since, but the order to move does not come. We trust that we are not to be kept here any longer, in the doubtless important, but inactive and inglorious duty of the defence of Washington. We have “stood guard” long enough. If there is anything to be done, and they will only allow us to have a hand in it before our time expires, it is all the favor we ask of our military rulers.
The ranks of Company C have been sadly depleted by the prevailing maladies. The company and the cause have lost two good soldiers, in the deaths of Corporal Pope and Private Sutton. I fear that more are to follow them. Some dry and warm weather, however, such as I trust we are about to have, will do wonders for the health of the command.
Brigadier General Stannard arrived last week, and assumed command. He is right welcome to the brigade, for the soldiers know his sterling qualities, and to none more so than to the Twelfth to whom his coming restores their colonel.
The paymaster is paying the brigade four months’ pay.
Yours, B.
April 26—Left here this morning and took the same route that I came by. Our boat got to Greenville at 10 A.M. My regiment in my absence has gone twelve miles across the river to a place called Pacatolus. I followed them in a buggy, and got there at 4 P.M.
by John Beauchamp Jones
APRIL 26TH.—This being Sunday I shall hear no news, for I will not be in any of the departments.
There is a vague understanding that notwithstanding the repulse of the enemy at Charleston, still the Federal Government collects the duties on merchandise brought into that port, and, indeed, into all other ports. These importations, although purporting to be conducted by British adventurers, it is said are really contrived by Northern merchants, who send hither (with the sanction of the Federal Government, by paying the duty in advance) British and French goods, and in return ship our cotton to Liverpool, etc., whence it is sometimes reshipped to New York. The duties paid the United States are of course paid by the consumers in the Confederate States, in the form of an additional per centum on the prices of merchandise. Some suppose this arrangement has the sanction of certain members of our government. The plausibility of this scheme (if it really exists) is the fact that steamers having munitions of war rarely get through the blockading fleet without trouble, while those having only merchandise arrive in safety almost daily. Gen. D. Green intimates that Mr. Memminger, and Frazer & Co., Charleston, are personally interested in the profits of heavy importations.
April 26.—The schooner Clarita, from Havana to Matamoras, Texas, was captured by the steamer De Soto. She proved to be the old revenue cutter John Y. Mason, taken by the rebels at the outbreak of the rebellion.—At Louisville, Ky., during the sale of a lot of negroes at the courthouse this morning, the Provost-Marshal notified the buyers that four of those put up for sale were free under the provisions of the President’s Proclamation. The sale, nevertheless, went on, when the matter of the four “contrabands” was turned over to the District Judge.—Louisville Journal.
The Seventy-sixth Ohio regiment, under the command of Colonel R. C. Woods, returned to Milliken’s Bend, La., from an expedition into Mississippi. They visited the regions bordering on Deer Creek, and destroyed three hundred and fifty thousand bushels of corn, and thirty cotton gins and grist-mills in use by the rebels.
—The town of Cape Girardeau, Mo., garrisoned by a force of National troops, under the command of General John McNeil, was this day attacked by a strong body of rebels, under General Marmaduke, but after a contest of several hours’ duration, the rebels were repulsed with heavy loss.— (Doc. 177.)
Near Richmond, Sunday, April 26. The Battery were awake at 2 A. M., while I was on post, having had but four short hours of sleep. The horses were harnessed immediately and we started at about 3:30 which gave us a good start before sunrise. Not quite as warm as yesterday. Marched through apparently very old country and productive. 11 A. M. went into park at Holmes’s Plantation, eight miles from Richmond. Unharnessed. Put up the tarpaulins. Got some fresh meat and water. At 1 o’clock the order came to be ready to march at 4 P. M. Logan’s Division marched by. Marched until sundown when we went to park at another plantation just in time to prepare for a storm. Rained heavily all night. Heavy firing heard in the night via Vicksburg.
Sunday, April 26th. Left Mansfield last night at 10 o’clock, and after a miserable, jolting ride of twenty-nine miles, got to the breakfast stand about 9 o’clock a. m. The road was better and the ride more agreeable for the next twenty-five or thirty miles, which brought me to Natchitoches, La. Met some militia-men, a few soldiers from Sibley’s command, all of whom gave the most doleful account of affairs below, on Red river; said that General Kirby Smith and all his staff and everything of military character had left Alexandria on a steamboat for Shreveport; that the Federals were within fourteen miles of Alexandria yesterday morning; that there were 50,000 of them. I do not believe more than half the rumors that are afloat, and am patiently awaiting the arrival of the stage, which left Alexandria last night, to learn something positive.
April 25th. At five A. M., hove up anchor and continued on our way up the river, now and then coming to for the purpose of destroying flat-boats and sugar manufactories which were supplying the rebels with sugar and molasses whenever we were not bobbing around in the vicinity. Their cake is now all dough, since hereafter we will have one or two steamers patroling the river all the time. At two o’clock, P. M., brought ship to anchor off the mouth of Red River, Albatross and ram Switzerland making fast ahead inshore.
25th. Played chess with Chester. One game ahead. Was down to see Charlie, writing to Will Hudson. Mr. Brown preached in the evening at the church. Read Fantine in “Les Miserables.” Much more interested than at first. Splendid. In the evening wrote to Delos. This is his birthday, “B. F.” anniversary.
Saturday, 25th—Start at 3 o’clock for the wagons at Yankeetown. All horses unfit for duty sent there under Lieut. Gibson of 11th Texas. Regiment went to Rock Island. We came in fifteen miles of Sparta and camped. Men and lame horses straggled all along the road for miles. I and McFarlan bunked together.
