Headquarters, Left Wing 16th Army Corps,
Lagrange, Tenn.,
June 7, 1863.
We had occupied our very pleasant quarters but two days when an order came for us to pack up for Vicksburg. Received the order at dark and by daylight the next morning we were in Lagrange. General Oglesby had moved his headquarters here and he gobbled me without a moment’s warning. The regiment moved on for the doomed city yesterday and left me. Now don’t write me any of your “glads,” for I’m almost demoralized over the matter. Am uneasy as the d—. The idea of leaving just when I know that the regiment is moving on to a fight doesn’t look at all right; but then I’m where I’d rather be than at any other place in the army, and suppose that other chances will be offered for fighting. If the general had entirely recovered from his wound, I am sure that we would leave this railroad guarding business to some one of less importance in the field, but he is hardly able to stand an active campaign yet. Sam Caldwell, Major Waite and myself compose the staff now and it is so pleasant. It’s “Sam” “Waite” “Charley” and “general.” I have been east on the railroad to-day looking at the defenses of the road. ‘Twill be completed to Corinth by Wednesday next, when the road to Jackson and from here to Corinth will be abandoned. We’ve had another scare here to-day. Some 800 Rebels within a few miles of us. One of the cars on which our regiment was loaded flew the track yesterday, and one man was killed and several hurt. None of my company, or that you knew.
June 7th. Slight firing from pieces of artillery, heard in rear of Port Hudson, early this morning; at ten A. M. ship and crew inspected by Commodore; at ten thirty, called all hands to muster, performed Divine service, and mustered crew around capstan. Nothing more, worthy of being recorded, occurred during this day. I forgot here to mention, as is the custom in the naval service, on the first Sunday of every month, that the articles of war were read to the ship’s company assembled together on the quarterdeck, before Divine service was performed, by the first Lieutenant and Executive Officer, Mr. L. A. Kimberly.
June 7 — Several cannons were fired during the night on our line commenced as usual at day dawn. 9 o’clock a.m. W. Adams was just now wounded (thought mortally) by a spent ball. The Feds have just commenced shelling town again after an intermission of two days. W.R.C.
June 7th, 1863. (In the cellar.)—I feel especially grateful that amid these horrors we have been spared that of suffering for water. The weather has been dry a long time, and we hear of others dipping up the water from ditches and mud-holes. This place has two large underground cisterns of good cool water, and every night in my subterranean dressing-room a tub of cold water is the nerve-calmer that sends me to sleep in spite of the roar. One cistern I had to give up to the soldiers, who swarm about like hungry animals seeking something to devour. Poor fellows! my heart bleeds for them. They have nothing but spoiled, greasy bacon, and bread made of musty pea-flour, and but little of that. The sick ones can’t bolt it. They come into the kitchen when Martha puts the pan of corn-bread in the stove, and beg for the bowl she has mixed it in. They shake up the scrapings with water, put in their bacon, and boil the mixture into a kind of soup, which is easier to swallow than pea-bread. When I happen in they look so ashamed of their poor clothes. I know we saved the lives of two by giving a few meals. To-day one crawled upon the gallery to lie in the breeze. He looked as if shells had lost their terrors for his dumb and famished misery. I’ve taught Martha to make first-rate corn-meal gruel, because I can eat meal easier that way than in hoe-cake, and I prepared him a saucerful, put milk and sugar and nutmeg—I’ve actually got a nutmeg. When he ate it the tears ran from his eyes. “Oh, madam, there was never anything so good! I shall get better.”
______
Note: To protect Mrs. Miller’s job as a teacher in New Orleans, the diary was published anonymously, edited by G. W. Cable, names were changed and initials were often used instead of full names — and even the initials differed from the real person’s initials.
by John Beauchamp Jones
JUNE 7TH.—I saw yesterday a specimen of the President’s elaborate attention to the matter of appointments. Lient.-Gen. A. P. Hill having asked for a military court to his corps, and having recommended the officers, the President, with his own hand, laid down the rule of selection for the guidance of the Secretary, viz.: the State which had the greatest number of regiments would be entitled to the choice of positions, to be taken from the candidates of its citizens according to qualifications, recommendations, etc. It appeared that North Carolina stood first on the list, Virginia next, Georgia next, and so on.
Oh that we could get something decisive from Vicksburg! If Grant’s and Banks’s armies should be destroyed, I think there would be some prospect of peace at an early day. For, if Lincoln should persist in a prolongation of the war, the probabilities would be the expulsion of the enemy from the MississippiValley and the recovery of New Orleans. After the fifteenth of this month, operations must cease on the Carolina and Georgia coasts—Charleston and Wilmington being still in our possession. But we should not be idle. Lee, in disdaining the sheltered army of the invaders, would be likely to invade in turn; and the public demand of retaliation for the cruelties and destruction of private property perpetrated by the enemy could not be resisted. His men would probably apply the torch to the towns and cities of the Yankees, destroying their crops, farming utensils, etc., as the invaders have done in Virginia and elsewhere.
To avoid these calamities, it is possible Lincoln would make peace. Therefore we are so anxious to hear from Vicksburg, the turning-point of the war.
Besides, we shall not please England by our treatment of her consuls; and this may stimulate the United States to concentrate its wrath upon its ancient foe.
June 7.—The expedition under General P. P. Blair, sent out from Haines’s Bluff to the Big Black River, on the twenty-seventh of May last, returned to-day. The captures made during the expedition amount to five hundred head of cattle, five hundred horses and mules, one hundred bales of cotton, and ten thousand pounds of bacon, together with a number of small articles, taken by the soldiers and never accounted for. All bridges were either burned or demolished and the forage destroyed.—Partisan guerrillas burned the railroad bridge over the Little Harpeth River, at Brentwood, Tenn.—The battle of Milliken’s Bend was concluded this day. After a most desperate fight, the rebels were repulsed, and retired, leaving over one hundred dead on the field. The Union loss was three hundred and ten killed and wounded.— (Docs. 8 and 27.)
—The plantation of Jefferson Davis was visited by a party of Union troops, who “rifled it completely, destroying every implement of husbandry, all his household and kitchen furniture, defacing the premises, and carrying off every negro on the place. The plantation of Joe Davis, brother of the President, was treated in the same way, if we except four or five domestic servants which the robbers left.”—Jackson Mississippian, June 11.
—The schooner Alfred H. Partridge, belonging to Gloucester, Mass., was captured by the rebel privateer Clarence.
June 7.—We are living in fear of a Yankee raid. They have a large force on York River, and are continually sending parties up the Pamunky and Mattapony Rivers, to devastate the country and annoy the inhabitants. Not long ago a party rode to the house of a gentleman on Mattapony; meeting him on the lawn, the commander accosted him: ” Mr. R., I understand you have the finest horses in King William County?” “Perhaps, sir, I have,” replied Mr. R. ” Well, sir,” said the officer, ” I want those horses immediately.” “They are not yours,” replied Mr. R, “and you can’t get them.” The officer began to curse, and said he would burn every house on the place if the horses were not produced. Suiting the action to the word, he handed a box of matches to a subordinate, saying, “Burn!” In half an hour Mr. R. saw fourteen of his houses in a light blaze, including the dwelling, the kitchen, corn-houses and barn filled with grain, meat-house filled with meat, and servants’ houses. Scarcely any thing was saved, not even the family clothes. But he did not get the horses, which were the objects of his peculiar wishes; the faithful servants had carried them away to a place of safety. How strange it is that we can be so calm, surrounded as we are by danger!
Sunday, 7th.—One man of our reserve wounded. Pretty heavy cannonading up the river. Some are in hopes it is Johnston with re-inforcements.
