Wednesday, 12th—We had a fearful windstorm today, though no rain. Everything in camp is moving along fine and the boys are quite cheerful. We have plenty of wood, canebrake and Spanish moss for our use and our camp is in good shape.
Monday, August 12, 2013
Vicksburg, Wednesday, Aug. 12. Received mail. I got two letters from home bearing date of July 12th and August 2nd,, the first being detained at Memphis. What a source of comfort these weekly messengers from home are to me. How anxiously I wait for the week to roll around so as to be the recipient.
Unidentified soldier in Confederate uniform with Colt revolver.
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Ninth-plate tintype, hand-colored ; 7.4 x 6.1 cm (case)
Gift by Tom Liljenquist; 2010
Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photographs; Ambrotype/Tintype photograph filing series; Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
Record page for image is here.
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Note – This image has been digitally adjusted for one or more of the following:
- fade correction,
- color, contrast, and/or saturation enhancement
- selected spot and/or scratch removal
- cropped for composition and/or to accentuate subject matter
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Civil War Portrait 056
by John Beauchamp Jones
AUGUST 12TH.—Letters from Georgia to-day assure the government that the grain crops of that State will afford a surplus sufficient for the army, cavalry and all, for 12 months.
Also one from P. Clayton, late Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, censuring the commissary agents in Georgia, who are sent thither from other States, who insult the farmers and encourage speculation.
Mr. Memminger is shipping gold from Wilmington, $20,000 by each steamer, to Bermuda and Nassau. Why is this? Cotton is quite as good as gold, and there are thousands of millions worth of that in the country, which Mr. Memminger might buy, certainly might have bought for Confederate notes, but, in his peculiar wisdom, he would not. And now, the great financier is shipping gold out of the country, thinking, perhaps, it may arrest the depreciation of paper money!
Col. Northrop, Commissary-General, is still urging a diminution of rations, and as our soldiers taken by the enemy fare badly in the North, and as the enemy make a point of destroying all the crops they can when they invade us, and even destroy our agricultural implements and teams, he proposes, in retaliation, to stop meat rations altogether to prisoners in our hands, and give them instead oat gruel, corn-meal gruel, and pea soup, soft hominy, and bread. This the Secretary will not agree to, because the law says they shall have the same as our troops.
I read to-day Gen. Lee’s report or his operations (an outline) in June and July, embracing his campaign in Maryland and Pennsylvania.
The enemy could not be attacked advantageously opposite Fredericksburg, and hence he determined to draw him out of his position by relieving the lower valley of the Shenandoah, and, if practicable, transfer the scene of hostilities north of the Potomac.
The movement began on the 3d of June. The divisions of McLaws and Hood (Longstreet’s) marched for Culpepper C. H. They were followed on the 4th and 5th by Ewell’s corps, A. P. Hill’s still occupying our lines at Fredericksburg.
When the enemy discovered the movement (on the 5th), he sent an army corps across the Rappahannock, but this did not arrest Longstreet and Ewell, who reached Culpepper C. H. on the 8th, where they found Gen. Stuart and his cavalry. On the 9th the enemy’s cavalry and a strong force of infantry crossed the Rappaannock and [click to continue…]
