Monday, 5th—Remained in Camp.
Saturday, October 5, 2013
Colonel Lyons.
Stevenson, Ala., Mon., Oct. 5th, 1863.—Major Generals Hooker and Butterfield arrived here on Saturday night. I have been engaged preparing headquarters for them and their staff. They spend nearly all their time in my office, and of course draw quite a crowd around them. Gen. Hooker is in command of all the troops sent here from Virginia, and Butterfield is his Chief of Staff. These troops at present are scattered from Nashville to Bridgeport, and the General will keep his headquarters here until there is some other movement. He is located within a few yards of my quarters.
Ruger’s Brigade is back on the railroad thirty or forty miles. We expect the Adjutant down here every train. With the exception of two or three little raids across the river, up towards Chattanooga, resulting in the loss of some wagons and stores, everything is quiet about here. I wait and watch for things to settle down, so that you can come to me, but the time has not yet arrived. Your army experience will be defective unless you can make a campaign in Alabama as well as in Missouri and Tennessee. Capt. Blake is here. I find him very gentlemanly and obedient. Sickness, mostly ague, is on the increase in the regiment, none dangerously ill.
Major-General Howard, who commands the 11th Army Corps, Sigel’s old command, was here yesterday. He is located at Bridgeport. The three Major-Generals were together in my quarters yesterday, and if you are willing I will give you a description of them.
General Hooker is a large, finely built, erect man, about 45 to 50 years old, shaves smooth, has light blue eyes and homely nose, and is one of the most familiar and affable men I have ever met. He impresses you at once with the idea that he is brave and true, and as kind and tender-hearted as a woman. He is one of those men who not only commands respect and confidence, but love. He is very entertaining in conversation, and last evening gave me a history of his connection with the Army of the Potomac, from which I learned more of the operations there than I ever knew before. He is thoroughly satisfied that history will fully vindicate the correctness of his generalship there so far as he was permitted to act on his own judgment. He complained bitterly of Washington interference and I doubt not with good cause.
Butterfield is a small, handsome man, about thirty-five years old. He is quiet, unostentatious, and in manners a polished gentleman. He talks but little, but is evidently a man of great intellectual power. He labors incessantly. One of his staff said that he never rests and never allows any rest to any one about him.
Howard is a small man, and with the exception that his hair is quite gray, appears young. I do not think him much over thirty-five. He lost an arm at the battle of Fair Oaks. In manners he appears very much like Samuel D. Hastings. He has a mild blue eye, is very handsome, very affable, and is really what the ladies call a charming man. Added to these qualities, be is a very brave man and deeply pious. We seldom see three such men together in the army or in any other place.
The staff officers are all young men, and very pleasant gentlemen. Col. Fessenden, a son of Senator Fessenden of Maine, is one of them.
Charles Francis Adams, Jr., to his father
Hartwood Church, Va., October 5, 1863
In addition to moving they have again put me on duty as Judge Advocate of a Court Martial. Accordingly I now have no time to write to anyone or to get through the necessary business of my company, for on the march and in campaign I am on duty and the moment we get into camp for a day or two the Court is convened and I am busy from morning to night preparing business, taking notes, examining witnesses and expounding military law. Thus I have little time enough to call my own, as for three weeks I have been soldier one day and lawyer the next, coming in for every discomfort of duty, both routine and extra, with none of the advantages of either, and with little opportunity to take care of myself or think of my friends.
We broke camp at Warrenton about the 12th of last month and have been wanderers ever since. Finally where have we landed? Did you read the heading of my letter? The last of May, with a light heart and hoping never to see it again, I turned my back on Hartwood Church. Now here, early in October, as the result of four months of suffering, peril, anxiety and labor, which has used up one out of every two of the officers and men of the regiment, we find ourselves returned for picket duty to that very Hartwood Church. It is bitter! The summer is over and we have just held our own. We have not advanced one foot in Virginia! Just here, all last winter we shivered in mud, ice and snow through short days and interminable nights. From this spot we went out full of hope in April and again in May, and now in October we have come back with, I imagine, much the same feelings with which battered, disappointed old men walk up the steps of their old university. As it can’t be helped we must make the best of it and it would be unfair to make our lack of progress the test of our success. We have completely foiled the best army and the ablest Generals of the Confederacy in its greatest effort and the fact that we hold our own here is no small item in the estimate of our general progress. . . .
5th. Went over to the house and learned the damage. Very pleasant people. How these people are suffering and will suffer during the year. Whole Brigade and 103rd made heavy reconnoissance. Several killed, wounded and prisoners. Seven of the 103rd missing. Relieved after dark by Lt. Lough, Co. A and M. All in camp supposed Co. C committed the outrage. Boys told differently.
Monday, 5th.—Cannonading towards Chattanooga.
Memphis, Monday, Oct. 5. I was on guard last night. It was very cold, a heavy frost. Reveille was sounded in the infantry camp before dawn and at 5 A. M. they moved out; also the 12th Wisconsin Battery. Our quartermaster drew three sets of artillery harness, whips, curry combs and leather buckets. Water call in the afternoon, after which hitched up as soon as possible, struck tents and moved toward the depot of the Memphis and Charleston road. Came into battery on the planked floor which we found between the depots of about an acre in area. Unhitched and stretched the picket ropes. Amused ourselves rolling cannon balls, good fun for soldiers. Made our beds down in the open air, but dry floor.
Monday Oct 5th 1863
Perhaps I might have made it interesting to have continued my diary. But I have been absent some time since my last date, and important events it is true have occured, great Battles have been fought, and great Victories have been won by our arms. The month of July saw our arms victorious everywhere. Vicksburg & Port Hudson on the Miss River were captured. Over 30,000 prisoners were taken in the first and 7000 in the last place. The Very important Battle of Gettysburge in Penn’a was fought on the 3rd July where the Rebels were signaly beaten and Genl Lee driven back into Virginia. No important Battles since that time in V.A. Genls Meade and Lee have been watching each other since but there has been a good deal of Severe skirmishing on the part of the Cavalry. Our Army of the Potomac is now near Culpepper V.A. Our Pickets and those of the Enemy are within speaking distance of each other. A severe Battle was fought about the 11th of last month in East Tennessee Betwen the Armies of Genl Rosecrans and Genl Bragg. We lost 10,000 Men killed & Wounded and were repulsed but not defeated. The object of the Rebels was to take Chattanooga which we still hold. The Armies are now near each other in force, another Battle there is expected soon. In August Genl Gilmore at Charlston astonished the World by knocking down the Walls of Fort Sumptor at the distance of 21/2 miles and by throwing Shells into the City from a distance of 5 miles. He has now got the whole of Morris Island and is engaged preparing Batteries at Cummings Point from which point to Bombard the City with Effect. He took Fort Wagner (on the Island) after the most tremenduous Bombardment that any Fort ever Experienced. We are now expecting to hear that he has again opened upon Charlston with “Greek fire” Shells. Mr Short the inventer has been down there for some time past filling Shells with it.
My Family has remained in Sag Harbor since they went there in June last year. I was at home in August last and staid two weeks. The weather was extremely hot all the month of August everywhere and I did not enjoy myself so well on that account. I returned to Washington the 18th of the month. In the months of June and July while the Rebels were in Maryland and P.A. I belonged to the Volunteer Regt of the Interior Department and drilled about every other day expecting to be called out into the Rifle Pitts back of the City every day. But the danger passed away after the Battle of Gettysburgh since which there has not been much drilling by the Employees of the Department. Washington is if possible more crowded than it was last year. It is utterly impossible to get a House to live in if one is wanted and a great many are wanted. People have to Board and pay high. Provisions, fuel &c are very dear, best flour $12.00, Butter 35.cts, coffee 40., Sugar 16., potatoes $1.25, peaches $1.00 per peck, Tomatoes $2.00 pr B.
Beef 18.cts, Oak wood $9.00 pr cord, Coal $10. pr ton &c &c. In August little Jessie died, the first child of my son Charles & Sallie. She was about 10 months old and a very sweet child. She was much loved by Mr & Mrs Woodward and by us all. Mr W provided rather extravagantly for the funeral, attending to everything himself, the coffin (of the finest Rosewood) cost $45.00. He paid all expenses. It is proposed to have a meeting of all our Brothers and Sisters at Lyons this month. I have had two or three letters upon the subject and my attendance requested. I do not know as I can go. It will take too much time and money. On Saturday last I went down to Alexandria V.A. My good friend Surgeon N S Barnes at the Mansion Hospital insisted upon my staying over night with him in the Hospital. The Mansion Hospital is (or was) a large Hotel. The old Braddock House forms a part of it and in that part I slept. It has been built about 120 years and is still in a good state of preservation. Some of the Stone at the corners were crumbling away or scaling off and with the usual Yankee desire for Relics I brought away some of the pieces. The Streets in Alexandria are Strongly Barricaded with round timbers set in the ground close together and standing about eight feet high with holes for Musketry. I returned to Washington last evening. I visit the Hospitals in the City more or less every week. I go to the Stanton Hospital the most. It is composed of Barracks or low wooden buildings on the Square in front of the Douglass Hosp’l. I have taken quite an interest in some of the patients there and visit them frequently, especialy in H W Brown of Lyons and John Peters, both wounded at the Battle of Chancellorsville the 3rd of May last. Brown can just go about on Crutches. Peters has not yet been off his bed, both were wounded in the thigh (compound fracture). Not many live through it. One Rebel Col and about forty other rebel prisoners are there. They all receive the same attention which our own soldiers do in everyrespect (clothing &c).
Monday, 5th—Everything is very quiet here, although as the health of the men is improving our duties become more laborious. Every regiment that can be taken from Vicksburg is being sent to reinforce the armies at other posts. General Sherman has been ordered to proceed to Chattanooga and thus all of the Fifteenth Army Corps will be taken from the vicinity of Vicksburg.
October 5th. Weather improved and roads drying up. A division of the Sixth corps is to relieve us to-day, and we retire to the rear. There is considerable activity on the part of the enemy, and the signal officer reports long trains of wagons moving to the rear, which may indicate a fall campaign.
October 5.—Great excitement prevailed at Nashville, Tenn., in consequence of the rebel General Forrest, with a force of over three thousand mounted men, having made a descent upon the railroad between that place and Bridgeport. Skirmishing occurred in the neighborhood of Murfreesboro, a railroad bridge at a point south of that place being destroyed by the rebels.—A Band of guerrillas, under the chief White, of Loudon County, Va., made a raid into Langley, six miles above Georgetown, D. C., driving in the pickets, without any casualty. — Colonel Cloud, in a message to General Blunt, dated at Fort Smith, Ark., said he had just returned from a raid in the Arkansas Valley. Near Dardanelles he was joined by three hundred “mounted Feds,” as the Union Arkansians are called, and with them and his own force routed the rebels, one thousand strong. They fled in confusion leaving tents, cooking utensils, wheat, flour, salt, sugar, and two hundred head of beef cattle behind. They reported as they ran that “Old Blunt, with his whole army, was after them.” Several hundred Union men offered their services as a home guard regiment. Colonel Cloud authorized them to enrol and offer their services to the Military Governor, when appointed. He left garrisons there and at Clarksville.—The batteries on Lookout Mountain, and at points all along the rebel lines, opened fire upon Chattanooga. The Unionists under Rosecrans, replied from their works on Moccasin Point, the Star Fort, and other works. The Tennessee River rose rapidly during the day.—A party of Captain Bean’s cavalry on a scouting expedition near Harper’s Ferry, Va., encountered a number of rebel cavalry belonging to the command of Colonel Imboden. A skirmish ensued, when the Union forces were repulsed, with a loss of one killed, three wounded, and ten captured. Two of the Unionists cut their way out and returned to camp, although severely wounded.
