Monday, 20th—We came in from picket this morning and this afternoon moved our regimental camp onto higher ground. Some of our boys are having a time with the ague and fever. The Fifteenth and Sixteenth Regiments were ordered out to Miller’s Creek to guard a wagon train. The Thirty-fifth Iowa passed us on their way to Vicksburg with five hundred prisoners from Johnston’s army. Orders came to prepare to march.
Saturday, July 20, 2013
July 20, Monday. Morgan’s invasion of Ohio and Indiana is likely to terminate more creditably to the Union cause than Lee’s excursion into Pennsylvania. It looks as if the fellow and his force would be captured.
July 20. — The Chamber of Commerce, at Cincinnati, Ohio, at a business meeting, expelled thirty-three members of their body for refusing to take the oath of allegiance.—At New-York City a large meeting of merchants was held, to adopt measures for the relief of the negro sufferers by the riots. Speeches were made by Jonathan Sturges, Richard Warren, A. F. Dow, and others; and resolutions were adopted, pledging the protection of the merchants to the negroes, in pursuing their customary avocations.
—Colonel Bussey, Chief of Cavalry of the army under General Sherman, returned to Jackson, from an expedition to Canton and beyond. At Canton, on the eighteenth, he met Jackson’s rebel cavalry division, four thousand strong, with three pieces of artillery, and, after a severe engagement, drove him across the Pearl River. The National force consisted of four thousand cavalry, under Busscy, and one thousand infantry, commanded by Colonel Wood, of the Seventy-eighth regiment of Ohio. They destroyed the railroad bridge over the Big Black, one mile of trestle-work between the Big Black and Canton, burning Way’s Bluff Station, destroying six miles of the track of the Jackson and New-Orleans and Mississippi Central Railroad, five locomotives, fifty cars, thirteen large manufacturing establishments and railroad buildings; completely destroyed the Dixie Works, and burned a large quantity of lumber. At Canton, they also destroyed the railroad, burned two locomotives, twenty-five cars, the depot, and a large lot of cotton. At Calhoun, they destroyed a pontoon-bridge, the ferry at Grant’s Mills, and several railroad bridges. They captured nearly one hundred prisoners, and lost twenty in killed and wounded.—(Doc. 138.)
Colonel Lyons.
Fort Donelson, July 20, 1863.—A few days ago Hinson and three others, one of whom was a soldier sentenced to be shot, escaped from the guard-house. I did not want them to escape, of course, but it relieves me from hanging one of them and shooting the other. It is quite a relief, too, I can assure you.
The health of the troops is improving. We get large quantities of blackberries, and the effect of their free use is most excellent on the health of the men.
The officers elected a chaplain the other day, Rev. Mr. Foote, of Rock county. Two of Flood’s Battery were captured by guerillas on Saturday. They were outside the lines, drunk. It is reported that they have been murdered, but I can not believe it. They were worthless fellows.
July 20 — Moved camp to-day again, and we are now camped near Berryville. All quiet in front.
[Diary] July 20.
I came home yesterday, and to-day I am summoned by Mr. Pierce to Beaufort to help nurse the wounded soldiers who have come down from Morris Island. They are coming in by hundreds. We hear the guns all day and night. The Fifty-fourth Massachusetts behaved splendidly at the attack on Fort Wagner.1 They took it, but we cannot hold it, for Fort Sumter commands it and shells our men out. Our young Hallowell was wounded three times. Mr. Pierce nursed him and brought him down. Nearly all the officers of the Fifty-fourth killed or wounded. Colonel Shaw, they say, sprang upon the fort and called to his boys to come on, and was then struck and fell. It is hoped he is a prisoner, and yet his comrades hardly dare to expect much from that, for, commanding black soldiers, will he not be murdered in cold blood? They are all greatly excited about him, hoping, fearing, disregarding their own wounds in their anxiety for him. They love him.2
1 July 18, 1863. The attack was led by the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts (colored), Colonel Robert Gould Shaw commanding.
2 Colonel Robert Gould Shaw was killed in the attack on Fort Wagner.
July 20—Went on picket to-day, stayed there one hour, and was ordered back. Got to camp, and found our brigade gone. We marched to Martinsburg, halted at 10 at night, two miles from town—ten miles to-day.
Headquarters Del. Dept.
Wilmington, Del., July 20th, 1863.
My dear Mother:
You have heard before now, I suppose, that I was in New-York a few days last week. I saw Horace then, but the excitement of the riots excluded all other topics of conversation.
Lilly was kind enough to write me a letter, which I shall gladly answer, as I have time enough now to remember all correspondents that remember me. If nothing else, I have abundant opportunities to read and write. After the draft has been enforced in this State, the necessity for Martial Law will probably have passed away. Then I hope either to have more active service, or to get relieved altogether. My summer experience will lead me to enjoy with the greater zest the coming winter.
Gen. Tyler has behaved most handsomely I think, for when he was ordered to Maryland Heights, it was with the understanding that he was to have an important command, if not that of the Middle Department itself. But the loss of Milroy’s Army, the advance of Hooker, and consequent assignment of French to the Heights, the troubles in Baltimore, one and all operated to break up all plans, and to leave him in his present position. I have not heard him utter, for all, a single word of complaint, though necessarily his position must be very irksome to him.
Aunt Maria, Uncle Phelps and Nellie were in New-York for a few hours while I was there, but I did not know it until it was too late. Mr. _____, who lives opposite my Uncle’s, sent for me to come and see him. He proposed that I should take charge of a patrol to protect their part of the town. I turned to young _____.and suggested that he would make one of the patrol. “No,” says the young man, “but I’ll furnish a porter from father’s store as a substitute.” Indeed thought I, with such heroic youths, there is no need of doing anything here. I can let this part of the city take care of itself.
Your affec. Son,
Will.
July 20th. Early this morning, a side-wheel steamer came up the river. Hoisted two rifle guns off the poop, and transported them forward. Some of the lads on liberty; those remaining on board, some of whom had been ashore and had a little run of it, working with a will, since they were now sure that the old and loved Hartford was homeward bound. The guns, eight in number, had been ordered to be got in readiness for being hoisted out of her, which was a sure indication that they were quite right in believing as they did. During the forenoon, sent two guns and carriages ashore; at three P. M. gunboat Estrella got under way and went down the river; at six forty, inspected crew at evening quarters, and transported two guns from the starboard to port side of deck. This was a good day’s work done, darkness coming on before the boys got through with it.
July 20th, 1863.
Vicksburg is ours; Johnson defeated and his forces scattered; our work in Mississippi is performed, and we have taken up the line of march for some other distant field.
We left Jackson at 3 a. m. today for Haines Bluff, where we take transports for some point north or east. I think I will be glad to put in the balance of my work a little farther north, although I would not hesitate to go anywhere, so I might contribute my mite toward putting down this rebellion. But, other things being equal, I would choose to be where we could get pure water, and, what I prize more than all else, hear from my loved family with some degree of regularity. It has been a sore trial, and hard to bear, to be compelled to wait for days and weeks for tidings from a sick and suffering wife.
We marched twelve miles this forenoon, and have halted for dinner. Fifteen miles must be made this afternoon to obtain water. It is a tough march, but necessity compels. It would seem that, in an emergency like this, when our lives depend upon our “staying power,” some unseen hand sustains us. As for myself, I have never borne hard marches so well as in Mississippi.
I see by the papers there is much talk of the Rebels carrying the war into the North. Well, let them go. “Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.” I am not sure but it is the only thing that can unite the North; certainly it will hasten the downfall of the Confederacy.
