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

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Post image for War Diary and Letters of Stephen Minot Weld.

War Diary and Letters of Stephen Minot Weld.

May 19, 2013

War diary and letters of Stephen Minot Weld

May 19. — Left General Benham this morning at about 10 o’clock, and came over to General Reynolds. Saw Lieutenant Egbert, 12th Infantry, and made arrangements for tenting and messing with him. Am with Major Riddle’s mess until our mess gets started. Day warm and pleasant. Saw General Sedgwick in the morning, and told him that I had left General Benham. He told me that I was right in doing what I did on the night of laying the bridges. Saw Charles W[hittier], who was sick.

[A few words of explanation will perhaps be proper, in regard to General Benham and my relations with him while on his staff. General Benham, I believe, graduated first in his class at West Point. He was certainly very high in his class. He was a man of a great deal of brain, but with an inordinate amount of vanity, and exceedingly nervous and irritable. On the evening that we were to lay the bridges, orders had been given to every one to speak in a whisper. Officers were to give their orders in a whisper, and every effort was being made to take the enemy by surprise, with no knowledge of what was intended. General Benham had a canteen, in which he said that he had put two glasses of sherry and had then filled it with water. This was the explanation which he gave us afterwards. At all events, his conduct that evening was most peculiar. He rode down to the bank of the river where the troops were lying on the ground, and rode through them, yelling and screaming and making an awful row. Adjutant-General Channing Clapp and I did not know what to do. General Benham quarrelled with all the general officers and put several of them under arrest, which he had no authority or power to do, and finally, when it got towards daylight, he tumbled off his horse and cut his face very badly. He left the blood to dry on. He finally said, “Come with me, Weld,” and off he started to General Reynolds’s headquarters. He rushed up to the general, who was standing by his horse with his staff, “Hurrah, Josh![1] Hurrah for here and Buena Vista!”

Altogether it was the most embarrassing and unpleasant and disagreeable experience I had ever had in the army. What to do I did not know, neither did Clapp. We tried to keep things as straight as we could, and to have the orders that had been given from headquarters carried out. It finally resulted in my sending in my resignation from his staff. The general first called all his staff together and said he had heard reports that he was intoxicated, and wanted to know what we thought. Every one of us said he was afraid that he had been. He said: “That is impossible. I had but two glasses of sherry in a canteen full of water. It was utterly impossible.” Anyway, the affair was so disagreeable and made everything so uncomfortable, that I decided to leave, and I reported to General Reynolds, and both he and Sedgwick, as I have said in my diary, told me that I had behaved properly and as I ought to have done.]

[1] A nickname of Gen. Reynolds.

Post image for Diary of a Tar Heel Confederate Soldier by Louis Léon

Diary of a Tar Heel Confederate Soldier by Louis Léon

May 19, 2013

Diary of a Tar Heel Confederate Soldier By Louis Léon [53d North Carolina Regiment, infantry]

May 19—Left here at 5 this morning, got to Richmond at 8, and are stationed at Camp Lee. We will have to march to Fredericksburg. Our brigade is transferred to the Army of Northern Virginia. William Cochran, myself and several of our company ran the blockade to-night, went uptown to a theatre, and got back to camp at 2 o’clock. We had a fine time while uptown.

Post image for A Soldier’s Story of the Siege of Vicksburg–Osborn H. Oldroyd.

A Soldier’s Story of the Siege of Vicksburg–Osborn H. Oldroyd.

May 19, 2013

A Soldier’s Story of the Siege of Vicksburg–Osborn H. Oldroyd

MAY 19TH.—This day beholds a cordon of steel, with rivets of brave hearts, surrounding Vicksburg. The enemy left their fortifications on the first, twelfth, fourteenth, sixteenth and eighteenth of this month, and dealt their best blows to prevent the occurrence of what we have just accomplished—the surrounding of their well fortified city. We have now come here to compel them to surrender, and we are prepared to do it either by charge or by siege, and they cannot say to us nay. They have fought well to keep their homes free from invasion, and surely deserve praise for their brave return to battle after so many defeats. Our army encircles the city from the river above to the river below, a distance of seven and a half miles.

The three corps have taken respective positions as follows: Sherman‘s Fifteenth occupies the right of the line, resting on the river above; General McClernand’s Thirteenth touches the river below, while McPherson’s Seventeenth stands in the center. Our own division, commanded by Logan, occupies the road leading to Jackson.

In taking our position we did a great deal of skirmishing, and I suppose the same difficulty was probably experienced by the rest of the line. We have been nineteen days on the march around Vicksburg, and the time has been full of excitement—quite too varied for a comprehensive view just now, but those who have borne a part in it will store it all away in memory, to be gone over between comrades by piece-meal, when they meet after the war is over.

The personal experience of even the humblest soldier will get a hearing in years to come, for it is the little things in an unusual life that are most entertaining, and personal observations from the rank and file, narrated by those who saw what they describe, will make some of the most instructive paragraphs of the war’s history.

This has been a day to try the nerves of the boys, while taking position in front to invest the doomed city. It has been a day to try men’s souls, and hearts, too. The long lines of rebel earthworks following the zig-zag courses of the hills, and black field guns still menacing from their port-holes, bristle with defiance to the invaders.

Our regiment, the 20th Ohio, being ordered in position on the Jackson road, immediately passed to the left in front of Fort Hill, where it stood ready to charge at a moment’s notice. Meanwhile Colonel Force cautiously made his way in front of the different companies and spoke familiarly to his men words of encouragement. Said he, “boys, I expect we shall be ordered to charge the fort. I shall run right at it, and I hope every man will follow me.” At that instant a soldier of one of the companies on the left was found snugly hid in a ravine under the roots of a tree, and his lieutenant’s attention being called to the fact, he was ordered out, when he replied, “lieutenant, I do not believe I am able to make such a charge.”

Map of Vicksburg, showing the river front and the positions of the Union and Confederate lines in the rear.

Post image for Cruise of the U.S. Flag-Ship Hartford. – From the Personal Journal of Wm. C. Holton.

Cruise of the U.S. Flag-Ship Hartford. – From the Personal Journal of Wm. C. Holton.

May 19, 2013

Cruise of the U.S. Flag-Ship Hartford–Wm. C. Holton

May 19th. Commences with clear and pleasant weather. Heard firing from twelve, midnight, to one A. M., in the direction of Port Hudson. From four o’clock until eight this morning, fresh easterly breezes; at five thirty A. M. steamer Price got under way and went up Red river, at twelve noon, the river steamer Empire Parish, “direct from New Orleans,” came out of Red river with a coal schooner in tow, and brought same alongside of us; at one P. M. the Empire Parish returned up Red river; and the crew employed coaling ship remainder of the day. Received fresh beef on board.

First at Vicksburg

May 19, 2013

Miscellaneous document sources

First at Vicksburg

 

Confederate Lines, Vicksburg, Mississippi, 19 May 1863. In this assault against bitter resistance the 1st Battalion, 13th Infantry, lost forty-three percent of its men, but of the attacking force, it alone fought its color up the steep slope to the top. General Sherman called its performance “unequalled in the Army” and authorized the 13th Infantry to inscribe “First at Vicksburg” on its color. Although it took two more months of hard fighting to capture Vicksburg and split the Confederacy, no episode illustrates better the indomitable spirit of Americans on both sides.

U.S. Army Center of Military History image.

Post image for A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary

A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary

May 19, 2013

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

by John Beauchamp Jones

MAY 19TH.—A dispatch from Gen. Johnston says a battle has been fought between Pemberton and Grant, between Jackson and Vicksburg, Mississippi, which lasted nine hours. Pemberton was forced back. This is all we know yet.

Another letter, from Hon. W. Porcher Miles, remonstrating against the withdrawal of Beauregard’s troops, was received to-day. He apprehends the worst consequences.

The government is buying 5000 bales of cotton for the Crenshaw scheme. Jas. R. Crenshaw, of this city, is at Charleston on this business. Why not arrange with Lamar?

Gov. Shorter forwards another strongly written memorial from Mobile, against the traffic of cotton with the enemy, and, indeed, against all blockade-running.

Gov. Jno. Milton, of Florida, also writes a powerful denunciation of the illicit traffic, which it seems the policy of the government has been to encourage. They all say this traffic is doing the work of subjugation more effectually than the arms of the enemy.

The President is too ill again to come to the Executive Office. His messenger, who brought me some papers this morning, says he is in a “decline.” I think he has been ill every day for several years, but this has been his most serious attack. No doubt he is also worried at the dark aspects in his own State—Mississippi.

If Vicksburg falls, and the Valley be held by the enemy, then the Confederacy will be curtailed of half its dimensions. Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Missouri, Arizona, New Mexico, all the Indian country, Kentucky, half of Tennessee, one-third of Virginia, Eastern North Carolina, and sundry islands, etc. of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, will be wrested from us. What will remain of the Confederacy? Two-thirds of Virginia, half of Tennessee, the greater part of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and the whole of Alabama,—less than six States! But still the war will go on, as long as we have brave armies and great generals, whether the President lives or dies.

Post image for A Diary of American Events.

A Diary of American Events.

May 19, 2013

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

May 19.—The rebel schooner Mississippi, from Mobile, Ala., to Havana, with a cargo of cotton and turpentine, was captured by the gunboat De Soto.—The National cavalry, under General Milroy, had a skirmish with the rebels, at a point six miles from Winchester, Va., in which they killed six and captured seven prisoners.—Richmond, Clay County, Mo., was captured, together with the National force occupying it, by a band of rebel guerrillas, after a severe fight, in which two officers of the Twenty-fifth Missouri regiment were killed. A lieutenant belonging to the captured party was shot after the surrender.—The Spanish steamer Union, was captured by the National gunboat Nashville.

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