by John Beauchamp Jones
OCTOBER 26TH.—No news from our armies. The President was in Mobile two days ago.
Gen. Rosecrans has been removed from his command, and Grant put in his place. Meade, it is said in Northern papers, will also be decapitated, for letting Lee get back without loss. Also Dalgren, at Charleston, has been relieved. And yet the Northern papers announce that Richmond will soon and suddenly be taken, and an unexpected joy be spread throughout the North, and a corresponding despondency throughout the South.
The weather is cloudy and cold. The papers announce that all clerks appointed since October 11th, 1862, by order of the Secretary of War, are liable to conscription. This cannot be true; for I know a Secretary who has just appointed two of his cousins to the best clerkships in the department—both of conscript age. But Secretaries know how to evade the law, and “whip the devil round the stump.”
How long will it be after peace before the sectional hatred intensified by this war can abate? A lady near by, the other night, while surveying her dilapidated shoes, and the tattered sleeping-gowns of her children, burst forth as follows: “I pray that I may live to see the United States involved in a war with some foreign power, which will make refugees of her people, and lay her cities in ashes! I want the people ruined who would ruin the South. It will be a just retribution!”
October 26.—Heavy skirmishing took place near Bealton, Va.—Colonel George E. Spencer, commanding five hundred men of the First regiment of Alabama (native) cavalry, on an expedition through Northern Alabama and Mississippi, was attacked and defeated by the rebel forces, “in the extreme south-east corner of Tishomingo County, Miss.”—A fight occurred at Tuscumbia, Ala.—(Doc. 209.)
Colonel Lyons.
Stevenson, Ala., Oct. 25, 1863.—We put the regiment on the cars yesterday afternoon, but it did not get off until this afternoon. I go in the morning. The Quartermaster, Ira Dutton, goes with his traps tomorrow, and the mounted infantry will go in two or three days, as soon as Lieut. Lamoreau gets back from Chattanooga, where he has gone with a drove of cattle for the army. That cleans out the 13th from Stevenson.
General Hooker moves his headquarters to Bridgeport tomorrow. I was relieved yesterday by Colonel Cobham; and he was relieved today by Colonel Ross, of a Connecticut regiment.
Sunday, 25th—Went to town this morning and sent a letter to Tunnel Hill by Harper to Miss Nannie.
Loudon, October 25th, 1863.
The storm has passed away, and the sun shines out warm and genial. The roads are in fearful condition, but getting better.
Yesterday all the teams, and everything, and everybody that could not fight, were sent to the rear. Every preparation was made to repel the expected attack; things packed and we lay all day behind our arms with all equipments on, ready for instant use. About 8 o’clock a strong force was sent out to reconnoitre, Toward night we could hear the dull boom of distant cannon, feeling for the enemy. Impatiently we awaited the result.
Dickson Station, Sunday, Oct. 25. A very pleasant day and quietly spent. Firing heard in the front with artillery about noon. Enemy reported to be fortifying and on the advance. Our Division ordered to be ready to move to the front at any moment. Teams returned from Iuka at 9 A. M., Billy Hamilton having started at 2 A. M. this morning. Looks very badly and discouraged. Drew clothing. I drew a pair of pants. Wrote to T. L. None received. Two loads of corn brought in.
25th. Morning work over, set out for regt. Stopped in town and saw wounded boys. Glad to see the boys so long absent. Reached Watauga about noon. Found most of Co. C absent on a scout. Came in about dark. Grand jubilee. Proposed to re-enlist as regiment. All would like to go home this winter but some don’t want to be bound again till time’s out.
October 25 — To-day I was at General A. P. Hill’s infantry camp, to see some of my old friends and acquaintances of ante-bellum days ; they belong to Captain Rice’s New Market Battery, which is connected with A. P. Hill’s corps. While I was in their camp General Pendleton held religious services in the woods, and preached from the seventh chapter and seventeenth verse of John. His sermon was genial, mild, and full of unadorned truth, but the cold, raw northwest wind that swept through the woods and moaned a death song to Autumn with an icy breath through the bare leafless branches of the forest trees, rendered the condition of its reception most too uncomfortable and coolish to properly and fully appreciate the grandeur of its intended virtue.
Sunday, 25th—I went out on picket today. We keep a strong picket guard along the entire line. The rebels’ cavalry are not as bold as they were two or three weeks ago, for they know that we are becoming more thoroughly entrenched every day; besides this, they have been pretty well driven out of this section.
25th.—To-day we heard the Rev. Mr. Peterkin, from the text: ” Be not weary in well-doing.” It was a delightful sermon, persuasive and encouraging. Mr. —— spends Sunday morning always in the hospital. He has Hospital No. 1, in addition to the Officers’ Hospital, under his care. They occupy a great deal of his time, in the most interesting way.
