Friday, 5th—William left me this morning. To-night I and Reuben went out to Mr. Mills and staid.
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
June 5. —We received orders this afternoon to be ready to move at daylight to-morrow. General Reynolds told me to keep my horse saddled all night. Sent James down to Aquia Creek to get some mess stuff and a box from Adams Express. Day pleasant and cool. Had a mess-chest made, and got all my things packed up, ready for a move. Heard heavy firing in the afternoon. Found out that it came from Sedgwick, who crossed the river at Franklin’s old crossing with one division. Captain Cross of the Regular Engineers was killed during the crossing.
JUNE 5TH.—The siege is still progressing favorably. There is joy in our camp, for Uncle Sam has again opened a clothing store, which we shall patronize, asking nothing about price or quality. The boys cheered lustily when they saw the teams drive in, and heard what they were loaded with. However, I don’t want to hug rifle-pits with a brand new suit on, for it would soon get dirty.
Friday, 5th—We remained in line of battle all night. Our brigade lay in bivouac all day. The Governor of the State of Iowa made a speech to the Iowa Brigade. Adjutant General Baker and Congressman Wilson of Iowa spoke also. The Sixteenth Iowa went out on picket. Skirmishing has been going on all day, and our men are digging rifle-pits.
Colonel Lyons.
Fort Donelson, June 5,1863.—Last night the brass band came about eleven o’clock and gave me a serenade. I had been asleep two hours, but had to get up, dress, go out and make a little speech.
The cavalry crosses this afternoon and are off for good tomorrow morning. They feel pretty sober. I send out Major Bond and six companies of infantry tomorrow after horses. A and B go from the 13th. Little Johnny, the Adjutant’s orderly, was mad this morning. He said, ‘I give five dollar to know who tied my mule loose last night.’ I shall keep the Adjutant as Post Adjutant.
June 5 — General J. E. B. Stuart had a grand review to-day of all the cavalry and horse artillery belonging to his corps. Early this morning we started to the field where the troops were to be reviewed by passing by the eagle eye of their great commander. The place where the review was held is a beautiful and nearly level plain about four miles northeast of Culpeper Court House and little over a mile southwest of Brandy Station, and on the west side of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad.
When we arrived on the field some of the cavalry regiments were already forming in dress parade order, for the review procession. At about ten o’clock the whole column, which was about two miles long, was ready and in splendid trim to pass in review before its illustrious and gallant chief and his brilliant staff.
As soon as the whole line was formed General Stuart and his staff dashed on the field. He was superbly mounted. The trappings on his proud, prancing horse all looked bright and new, and his side-arms gleamed in the morning sun like burnished silver. A long black ostrich feather plume waved gracefully from a black slouch hat cocked up on one side, and was held with a golden clasp which also stayed the plume. Before the procession started General Stuart and staff rode along the front of the line from one end to the other. He is the prettiest and most graceful rider I ever saw. When he dashed past us I could not help but notice with what natural ease and comely elegance he sat his steed as it bounded over the field, and his every motion in the saddle was in such strict accord with the movements of his horse that he and his horse appeared to be but one and the same machine. Immediately after General Stuart and staff had passed along the front of the whole line he galloped to a little knoll in the southeast edge of the field near the railroad, wheeled his horse to a front face to the field, and sat there like a gallant knight errant, under his waving plume, presenting in veritable truth every characteristic of a chivalric cavalier of the first order. He was then ready for the review, and the whole cavalcade began to move and pass in review before the steady, martial, and scrutinizing gaze of the great cavalry chieftain of America.
I do not pretend to know or guess at the number of men in line, but there were thousands, and it was by far the largest body of cavalry that I ever saw on one field.
Sixteen pieces of horse artillery marched at the head of the column, three bands of music were playing nearly all the time while the procession was moving, a flag was fluttering in the breeze from every regiment, and the whole army was one grand magnificent pageant, inspiring enough to make even an old woman feel fightish.
After the whole cavalcade passed the review station, at a quick walk, the column divided up into divisions, brigades, and regiments, which maneuvered all over the field. The last and most inspiring and impressive act in the scene was a sham battle, the cavalry charging several times with drawn sabers and the horse artillery firing from four or five different positions on the field. I fired ten rounds from my gun.
Hundreds of ladies from Culpeper Court House and surrounding country stood in bunches on the hills and knolls around the field, looking at the grand military display.
A special train from Richmond stood on the track just in rear of the review stand, crowded with people, and judging from the fluttering ribbons at the car windows the most of the occupants were ladies. General Hood’s division of infantry was drawn up on the north side of the field, viewing the cavalry display, and also for a support in case the Yanks would have attempted to take a hand in the show. There is a heavy force of Yankees camped on the north bank of the Rappahannock only about five miles from the review field.
By about four o’clock this evening the whole affair was over and the troops withdrew from the field and repaired to their respective camps. We were assigned to-day to Beckham’s battalion of horse artillery, and we camped with it this evening. This is the first time since we have been in service that we have been assigned to a battalion of artillery. Heretofore our battery always operated and camped independent of any other artillery. Camped one mile south of Brandy Station.
5th June (Friday).—I left Shelbyville at 6 A.M., after having been shaken hands with affectionately by “Aaron,” and arrived at Chattanooga at 4 P.M. As I was thus far under the protection of Lieutenant Donnelson, of General Polk’s staff, I made this journey under more agreeable auspices than the last time. The scenery was really quite beautiful.
East Tennessee is said to contain many people who are more favourable to the North than to the South, and its inhabitants are now being conscripted by the Confederates; but they sometimes object to this operation, and, taking to the hills and woods, commence bushwhacking there.
I left Chattanooga for Atlanta at 4.30 P.M. The train was much crowded with wounded and sick soldiers returning on leave to their homes. A goodish-looking woman was pointed out to me in the cars as having served as a private soldier in the battles of Perryville and Murfreesborough. Several men in my car had served with her in a Louisianian regiment, and they said she had been turned out a short time since for her bad and immoral conduct. They told me that her sex was notorious to all the regiment, but no notice had been taken of it so long as she conducted herself properly. They also said that she was not the only representative of the female sex in the ranks. When I saw her she wore a soldier’s hat and coat, but had resumed her petticoats.
June 5, Friday. The President read to-day a paper which he had prepared in reply to Erastus Corning and others. It has vigor and ability and with some corrections will be a strong paper.
Before Vicksburg, Friday, June 5. Fine day. Not very warm. Ordered to fire once every five minutes during the day. Went with the gun-limber to the magazine at noon. Fired twenty rounds in the evening. Occasional firing all night. .
Henry Adams, private secretary of the US Minister to the UK, to his brother, Charles.
London, June 5, 1863
The weeks dance away as merrily as ever they did in that dimly distant period when we were boys and you used to box my ears because your kite would n’t fly and were the means of getting them boxed by disseminating at the tea-table truthless stories that I was painting myself a moustache with pear-juice — incidents of an early youth which you no doubt have forgotten, as I was the injured party, but which have remained deeply rooted in my associations with an ancient greenroom called the dining-room in a certain house on a hill. At the present day, life is a pretty dull affair, but it passes quick enough. Still, before I die I would like to have one more good time such as I knew in former areas of the earth’s history. . . .
While you, like the Emperor Charles of Spain, are cursing the Rebels and the weather, we are going on in the old track. I am tired of it and want to go home and take a commission in a negro regiment. We dawdle ahead here, going to dinners, races, balls, dropping a mild dew of remonstrances upon the British Government for allowing rebel armaments in their ports; riding in the parks; dining stray Americans and stately English; and in short groaning under the fardel of an easy life. Such a thing it is to be pampered.
We are in short at vacation, politically speaking. I expect it to last a fortnight longer, and then I rather think we shall see the winds rise again. I fancy there will be a good storm by the middle of August. If we were let alone, the two nations would do admirably, but the rebels are doing their best to create a row, and I should not wonder if they succeeded. I believe we should have been at home by this time if the Alexandra had n’t been seized, and there are some ironclads now preparing, whose departure would certainly pack us off. There’s no telling what will happen, but I have no confidence in this Government. . . .
You will see perhaps that we’ve been having an election over in France, which has not been very favorable to our friend Napoleon. European affairs get worse than ever. They will have business enough to occupy them, and the Lord grant that Puebla may hold out. If it can, or if it lasts only a few months or even weeks, and we are reasonably successful on the Mississippi, I think that Europe will turn with considerable disgust from our affairs and will not again burn its fingers with them in our time.
As there does n’t seem to be anything of interest in the periodical way to send you this week, I put into the envelope my little pocket Horace. It can’t take much room and it may amuse you. You will find some few marks of mine in it, and certain odes where the leaf is turned down and pencil-marked, were the ones which Charles James Fox admired most. They are certainly not the best known. . . .
