July 2013

Army letters of Oliver Willcox Norton.

July 21, 2013

Army letters of Oliver Willcox Norton (Eighty-third Pennsylvania Volunteers)

Headquarters Third Brigade, Loudon Co., Va.,

Tuesday, July 21, 1863.

Dear Sister L.:—

When I wrote before, if I remember rightly, we were in line of battle near Hagerstown and Williamsport, expecting another fight, but again the wary Lee escaped. We stopped at Williamsport the night after he crossed, and next day moved on after him, marching twenty-five miles and crossing the famous South Mountain. Next day we moved on again twelve miles to Berlin on the Potomac, four miles south, and in sight of Harper’s Ferry. Here we hoped to rest a little. We had reached a railroad and a good place for getting supplies, and men and horses needed rest. Thousands of men were barefoot, officers, too, and all were dirty and lousy. I believe I state a fact when I say that not twenty men (who carried their clothing) in any regiment but were swarming with vermin. They are the pest of the army, and though you hear but little about it, they are always here. More clothing is thrown away on that very account than is worn out.

I say we hoped to rest and get new clothes and shoes and boil up the old ones, but the pontoons were already laid and next day saw us in Virginia. We have been slowly moving down the Loudon Valley since. The weather is very hot, and eight or ten miles is all the artillery can march in a day, so that is all we move. We have got about down to the scene of our fight with the cavalry on the 21st of June. I must always think of the gallant Colonel Vincent in connection with that, but his sword is sheathed forever, and glorious “old Jim,” who carried Colonel McLane at Gaines’ Mill and the commandant of the Eighty-third, whoever he might be, ever since, has served his time and gone home to Erie. My horse is all right yet. He is a warhorse every inch. He will stand by a cannon while it is fired, without flinching, and I can ride him over all the dead and mangled horses that can be piled in his road. He don’t like the shells too near his ears, but I can manage him then. While our line was forming on the hill at Gettysburg I came out with him in full view of the rebel lines. They opened two batteries on us instantly, firing at the colors. Colonel Vincent looked to see what was drawing the fire and yelled at me: “Down with that flag, Norton! D—n it, go behind the rocks with it!” I obeyed, of course. I did not see him again until he was brought back wounded. When the rebels charged our line I left my horse and flag with the mounted orderlies, and getting a gun went in on the right of the Forty-fourth New York, just in front of where we dismounted. In the cavalry fight I followed Colonel Vincent everywhere with the flag, most of the time right up to the skirmishers, but there he thought I had better keep it out of sight.

I am nearer sick than I have been for a year. I couldn’t walk a mile, and if there was a hospital within reach I am afraid I should give up. As it is, I could only ride along in an ambulance, and as long as I can stand it I shall ride my horse. I manage to attend to my duties yet. I have never been excused a day, and if possible never will.

What glorious news of victory we are receiving! It looks as though we could see the beginning of the end. I wish the end were nearer.

Civil War Diary of William Raleigh Clack, defender at Vicksburg.

July 21, 2013

Civil War Diary kept by W. R. Clack, Co. B, 43rd Regiment, Tennessee Volunteers.

July 21 — We have at last arrived at Enterprise, the place so long looked for. We are to take the train in the morning for Mobile at 7 o’clock. It is now raining hard, but we are under shelter. My health is improving. WRC

An Artilleryman’s Diary–Jenkin Lloyd Jones

July 21, 2013

An Artilleryman's Diary–Jenkin Lloyd Jones, 6th Battery, Wisconsin Artillery.

Vicksburg, Tuesday, July 21. Very warm. Considerable sickness. The Battery is much reduced in numbers, there being but two or three cannoneers to a platoon, which makes it heavy on the detail.

War Diary and Letters of Stephen Minot Weld.

July 21, 2013

War diary and letters of Stephen Minot Weld

July 21.— We remained in camp all day on the eastern outskirts of the town. I went down into the town and seized a man named Chancellor to act as a guide. I also gobbled a negro living on Mr. English’s place. I put them both under guard. Two drummer boys who were captured by Mosby yesterday came back this afternoon, having been paroled. They reported Mosby as being about 8 miles from here, and as having robbed Russell and Sanderson of all their money, etc. A man named Nolan was arrested and brought in, accused of having helped Mosby take the drummer boys. The weather was pleasant.

A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary

July 21, 2013

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

by John Beauchamp Jones

JULY 21ST.—We have intelligence to-day, derived from a New York paper of the 18th inst., that the “insurrection” in New York had subsided, under the menacing attitude of the military authority, and that Lincoln had ordered the conscription law to be enforced. This gives promise of a long war.

Mr. Mallory sent a note to the Secretary of War to-day (which of course the Secretary did not see, and will never hear of) by a young man named Juan Boyle, asking permission for B. to pass into Maryland as an agent of the Navy Department. Judge Campbell indorsed on the back of it (to Brig.-Gen. Winder) that permission was “allowed” by “order.” But what is this “agent” to procure in the United States which could not be had by our steamers plying regularly between Wilmington and Europe?

Downing’s Civil War Diary.–Alexander G. Downing.

July 20, 2013

Diary of Alexander G. Downing; Company E, Eleventh Iowa Infantry

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.

Diary of Gideon Welles.

July 20, 2013

Diary of Gideon Welles

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.

A Diary of American Events.

July 20, 2013

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

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.)

Reminiscences of the Civil War by William and Adelia Lyon.

July 20, 2013

Reminiscences of the Civil War, William and Adelia Lyon

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.