Camp White, August 17, 1863.
Dear Uncle:—. . . It looks as if we should be very quiet here for two or three weeks, after which it is probable we shall push up into the mountains again for a campaign of three or four weeks. . . .
Sincerely,
R. B. Hayes.
S. Birchard.
Unidentified soldier in red battleshirt and kepi.
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Sixth-plate ambrotype, hand-colored ; 12.5 x 10.8 cm (mat)
Deposit by Tom Liljenquist; 2012
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:
Civil War Portrait 060
August 17.—The bombardment of Fort Sumter commenced this morning at daybreak, by the siege-batteries, and the naval shore battery, under General Gillmore, assisted by the Ironsides and the entire monitor fleet, led by Admiral Dahlgren. Fort Gregg, the innermost battery of the rebels on Morris Island, and Fort Wagner, were silenced. A shot from the latter fort struck the monitor Catskill, and, forcing off a portion of the interior lining of the ship, instantly killed Commander Rodgers and Paymaster Woodbury. —(See Supplement.)
—Major-general Dix, from his headquarters at New-York, issued an address to the citizens of that place, in view of the enforcement of the draft, about to take place, imploring them to preserve order.
—Robert Toombs, of Georgia, addressed the following letter to Dr. A. Bees of Americus, in the same State:
“My Dear Sir: Your letter of the fifteenth instant, asking my authority to contradict the report that ‘I am in favor of reconstruction,’ was received this evening. I can conceive of no extremity to which my country could be reduced in which I would for a single moment entertain any proposition for any union with the North on any terms whatever. When all else is lost, I prefer to unite with the thousands of our own countrymen who have found honorable deaths, if not graves, on the battle-field. Use this letter as you please.”
—The rebel steamer Nita, having sailed from Havana, on the thirteenth, was captured by the Union steamer De Soto, in lat 29° 45′, long. 86″ 40′, while attempting to violate the blockade. —The Fourth Massachusetts and Twenty-eighth Maine regiments passed through Buffalo, NewYork, en route for home.—An order, regulating the discharge of prisoners, was issued from the War Department.
—Captain Wm. S. Hotchkiss, commander of the Union gunboat General Putnam, was killed while engaged in an expedition up the Piankatank River, Va., by a party of guerrillas.
by John Beauchamp Jones
AUGUST 17TH.—No news, except that the bombardment at Charleston is getting hotter—but the casualties are few.
The chief ordnance officer of Gen. Lee’s army writes that the ammunition from Richmond has always to be tested before they can venture to use it. The shells for the Parrott guns are often too large—and of course would be useless in the hour of battle
The Examiner to-day has an attack on the President for removing A. C. Myers, the Quartermaster-General.
Camp White, July 26, 1863.
Dearest:—I got yours of the 18th last night. Morgan’s embargo having been removed, we may now expect less delay in our correspondence. . Your description of the militia doings is amusing enough. We saw the same things on our route in Ohio, but they were really very useful in blocking roads, carrying information, and the like.
Dear little Joe, it will be a long, long time before you will even know in how many ways he was dear to you. There will be a loneliness in the house at Cincinnati greater than anywhere else. It was fortunate for your present feelings that we lost him as we did, instead of at home. The other boys are, I hope, enjoying themselves.
We are likely, I think, to remain here some time. The great successes of this month, if the Potomac Army meets with no great reverse, will be likely, I think, to substantially end the Rebellion during my original term of service. It is two years ago yesterday since we left Camp Chase. — Good-bye, dearest. Love to all.
Affectionately,
R.
Mrs. Hayes.
August 16 — The second section relieved the first this evening. I am still on the sick list, and feel sickish, bad, and dull; broke-upness is creeping and crawling all over me, the zest and vivacity that render camp life worth living have both gone on a scout and left me dispirited and languid.
Sunday, 16th.
Coming out of church this morning with Miriam, a young lady ran up with an important air, as though about to create a sensation. “I have a message for you both,” she said, fixing her eyes on mine as though she sought something in them. “I visit the prisoners frequently, you know, and day before yesterday Captain Steadman requested me to beg you to call, that he will not take a refusal, but entreated you to come, if it were only once.” The fates must be against me; I had almost forgotten his existence, and having received the same message frequently from another, I thoughtlessly said, “You mean Colonel, do you not?” Fortunately Miriam asked the same question at the instant that I was beginning to believe I had done something very foolish. The lady looked at me with her calm, scrutinizing, disagreeable smile — a smile that had all the unpleasant insinuations eyes and lips can convey, a smile that looked like “I have your secret —you can’t deceive me” — and said with her piercing gaze, “ No, not the Colonel. He was very ill that day (did you know it?) and could not see us. This was really the Captain.” “He is very kind,” I stammered, and suggested to Miriam that we had better pass on. The lady was still eyeing me inquisitively. Decidedly, this is unpleasant to have the reputation of being engaged to a man that every girl is crazy to win! If one only cared for him, it would not be so unpleasant; but under the circumstances, — ah ça! why don’t they make him over to the young lady whose father openly avows he would be charmed to have him for a son-in-law? This report has cost me more than one impertinent stare. The young ladies think it a very enviable position. Let some of them usurp it, then!
So the young lady, not having finished her examination, proposed to accompany us part of the way. As a recompense, we were regaled with charming little anecdotes about herself, and her visits. How she had sent a delightful little custard to the Colonel (here was a side glance at my demure face) and had carried an autographic album in her last visit, and had insisted on their inscribing their names, and writing a verse or so. “How interesting!” was my mental comment. “Can a man respect a woman who thrusts him her album, begging for a compliment the first time they meet? What fools they must think us, if they take such as these for specimens of the genus!”
Did we know Captain Lanier? Know him, no! but how vividly his face comes before me when I look back to that grand smash-up at Port Hudson, when his face was the last I saw before being thrown, and the first I recognized when I roused myself from my stupor and found myself in the arms of the young Alabamian. At the sound of his name, I fairly saw the last ray of sunset flashing over his handsome face, as I saw it then. No, I did not know him. He had spoken to me, begging to be allowed to hold me, and I had answered, entreating him not to touch me, and that was all I knew of him; but she did not wait for the reply. She hurried on to say that she had sent him a bouquet, with a piece of poetry, and that he had been heard to exclaim, “How beautiful!” on reading it. “And do you know,” she continued, with an air that was meant to be charmingly naïf, but which was not very successful, as naiveté at twenty-nine is rather flat, “I am so much afraid he thinks it original! I forgot to put quotation marks, and it would be so funny in him to make the mistake! For you know I have not much of the —of that sort of thing about me — I am not a poet —poetess, author, you know.” Said Miriam in her blandest tone, without a touch of sarcasm in her voice, “Oh, if he has ever seen you, the mistake is natural!” If I had spoken, my voice would have carried a sting in it. So I waited until I could calmly say, “You know him well, of course.” “No, I never saw him before!” she answered with a new outburst of naiveté.
16th. After a breakfast of boiled corn, bread and bacon, boys went after horses and I, in company with Eggleston, started for Stanford. Several thunder showers. Stopped at a farmer’s for dinner. Reached camp near 4 P. M. Stopped at my old stand, the Commissary. Saw Nettleton and other officers. Made application for discharge from the army.
Camp near Hickman’s Bridge, Ky.,
August 16th. 1863.
I did not join the regiment as soon as I expected, owing to the negligence of the Medical Director, whose duty it was to furnish me transportation. As I had no money, I was forced to await his pleasure. The regiment took cars for this place the day they crossed over, so I was left in Cincinnati until Friday evening to live as best I might. I crossed the river on Friday, and next morning took cars for Nicholasville, fourteen miles beyond Lexington, and one hundred fifteen miles from Cincinnati. I was just in time to get two months’ pay. I should have drawn for two months more, but there was a mistake in the pay rolls, which cannot be corrected until next muster. The Paymaster says he is going to pay us again next month, and the next time muster us out of the service.
We have a very pleasant camp, in a shady grove, and an abundance of pure, sparkling water, which I appreciate now as I never did before.
Sunday, 16th—We had regimental inspection this morning at 8 o’clock. The regiment showed itself in splendid order. A man from the Fifteenth Iowa was buried this morning, having died of fever.[1] Some of the sick boys of our regiment started home today on their furloughs. Mark Titus was the only one from our company, though some of the boys still have the fever.
[1] John Chrismore, Knoxville, Iowa. He died August 15th and was buried In National Cemetery at Vicksburg, Section G, grave 172.—Roster Iowa Soldiers, Vol. II, p. 926.
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