Saturday, 21st—Jim went to the Com. this morning. I had an offer for my mule this eve and sold him.
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Near Chattanooga, Saturday, Nov. 21. Awoke to find it had been raining very heavy all night. Our ditch overflowed and the water flowed into the tent under the bed wetting the blankets, making sleeping a troublesome matter anywhere. I got up, wrung my blankets and watched the rain. After breakfast harnessed our horses. As we have no feed they look very bad, indeed nearly all the halter stails on the rope were eaten off last night. I got a set of chain ones from the Battery wagon. Company cooks played out and rations issued to platoons. Boys all hail it gladly.
10 A. M. Two teams went to Chattanooga after forage. B. W. E. went on detail. Tried to write a letter, but it is so very cold that I made but little progress.
3 P. M. A circular has just been received from General Sherman to hold ourselves in readiness to march at any moment. Three days’ cooked rations and one blanket is all that is to be taken along, the ambulances to follow to the river and there await orders. The enemy have been playing from Lookout all day and it is told that sharp musketry is going on, but that general engagement will probably not come off until we cross the river, which it is said we will do to-night if the rain will not sweep off our pontoon. The crisis is fast approaching and it cannot be long ere we meet in deadly contest; of the final result I have but little doubt. I am confident in the ability of those contesting for the right. But alas! many must of necessity close their eyes in death. It is not for me to ask whom or when, but to trust to Him that noticeth the fall of a sparrow, and endeavor to do my duty. I pray that strength may be given me to meet my fate with courage.
8 P. M. It is night. The teams have returned without any feed. They met M. L. Smith’s Division on the bridge and they could not cross. Three sacks of grain was got at Division headquarters which gave us a small feed. Wagon went to draw rations at the commissary but could not get any. I have written a letter home and will now lie down and sleep with an easy mind until called upon. I am ready when the word comes.
Saturday, 21st—The weather is quite cool today. The Fifteenth Iowa got their pay today. Pay time for the soldiers is the time for the gamblers.[1] It is then that they start up their “chuck luck” games. These banks or games are set up south of town, about the springs where the boys from our brigade go for their water.
[1] That is, gambling among the soldiers themselves.—Ed.
21st. Raining heavily. Issued flour and beef to 2nd O. V. C. Robertson came down. Moved north of town and pitched tents and sent for forage. Two boys, “Shorty” and another, sat by the light and played “Seven Up.” Became pleasant before night. Left flour for the brigade with Powers. All wonder at our movements.
Friday, 21st.—Rained hard all night and this morning. Had to work another section in mud and rain. Regiment returned to other details, to work on ditches, doing rapid work.
November 21.—Abbie Clark and her cousin Cora came to call and invited me and her soldier cousin to come to dinner to-night, at Mrs Thompson’s. He will be here this afternoon and I will give him the invitation. James is asked for the evening.
November 21.—I have received a letter from Dr. Hopping. He has now charge of the Kingston Hospital, and is anxious to have Mrs. W. and myself there again. His wife is with him, and is one of the matrons. I should like very much to go, so as to be near the army; and had fully made up my mind to go either there or to Ringgold, but Dr. Hughes and Dr. Gamble are both unwilling to have Mrs. W. and myself leave, and I think it best to wait until the next battle. Our army may be defeated, and in that case the hospitals brought further in the rear.
Some few days ago I received a letter from my brother. He says his battery is stationed on the top of Lookout Mountain, and that he never saw such accurate firing as that of the enemy from below. He says their balls come right to where they are. The enemy have taken our cavalry by surprise, and by it we have lost a very important place, called Raccoon Mountain. The enemy now have sole possession of the Nashville Railroad, and are being heavily reinforced.
I am losing all confidence in General Bragg. He seems to make no use of his victories. I have been told by many of Longstreet’s men that after the battle of Chickamauga, there were thousands of troops who had come from Virginia, who had never fired a gun in the battle, and with them he might have gone and taken Chattanooga.
I have observed that Wellington and Napoloon, especially the latter, gained nearly all of their great victories by the celerity of their movements. Indeed, it has been the case with the most of great generals. But we must not judge, as we can not tell with what General Bragg has to contend. We have so few men, compared with the enemy, that were it not for the feeling which animates ours we would never gain.
To-day, Miss W. and myself took a walk, and visited some of the patients, who are in tents, about two squares distant. They are some of the gangrene cases, all of which are either in tents or rooms by themselves. They are doing pretty well. Many of them are great sufferers from this terrible disease. It has to be burned out with nitric acid, which is a very painful operation. I sometimes look at the wounds while being dressed, and they are dreadful. My wonder is how they can ever be healed.
After visiting them, we went to Mrs. Hill’s to see Captain Insey, one of the men who was sick at Judge Thornton’s, in Okolona, Miss. He is now very ill. He is a member of the Ninth Alabama Battalion. I have a friend in it, James Kay, of whose welfare I was glad to hear, as his mother had written to me concerning him. Mr. Kay is one of our Mobile boys, and I was much gratified when Captain I. informed me that he is a brave and good soldier.
Captain Thompson is very low, and there is no hope of his recovery. He is perfectly resigned to his fate, and talks as calmly on the subject as if he was going to pay a visit to his family.
November 21. Saturday. — Went to Gallipolis to meet the family, — Lucy, Webb, and Rud with Grandma Webb.
by John Beauchamp Jones
NOVEMBER 21ST. —We have further reports from the West, confirming the success of Longstreet. It is said he has taken 2200 prisoners, and is probably at Knoxville.
The President left the city this morning for Orange Court House, on a visit to Gen. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia.
We are a shabby-looking people now—gaunt, and many in rags. But there is food enough, and cloth enough, if we had a Roman Dictator to order an equitable distribution.
The Secretary of War is destined to have an uncomfortable time. After assuring the Legislature and the people that provisions in transitu would not be impressed, it is ascertained that the agents of the Commissary-General are impressing such supplies, and the Secretary is reluctant to interfere, the Commissary-General being understood to have the support of the President.
A committee of the Grand Jury yesterday submitted a paper to the President, on the subject of provisions—indicating the proximity of famine, and deprecating impressments. The President sent it to the Secretary, saying Mr. Seddon would no doubt take measures to keep the people of Richmond from starving; and directing the Secretary to “confer” with him. But to-day he is off to the army, and perhaps some may starve before any relief can be afforded.
A genteel suit of clothes cannot be had now for less than $700. A pair of boots, $200—if good. I saw to-day, suspended from a window, an opossum dressed for cooking, with a card in its mouth, marked “price, $10.” It weighed about four pounds. I luxuriated on parsnips to-day, from my own little garden.
A dollar in gold sold for $18 Confederate money, to-day. Our paper is constantly depreciating ; and I think it is past redemption, unless we adopt Mr. Moseley’s plan, and cause some six or eight hundred millions to be canceled, and fix a maximum price for all commodities necessary for the support of life. Congress will never agree upon any measure of relief. But if the paper money be repudiated, nevertheless we shall have our independence, unless the Southern people should become mad, divided among themselves. Subjugation of a united people, such as ours, occupying such a vast extent of territory, is impossible. The tenure of its occupation by an invading army would always be uncertain, and a million would be required to hold it.
A hard rain commenced falling this evening, and continued in the night. This, I suppose, will put an end to operations in Virginia, and we shall have another respite, and hold Richmond at least another winter. But such weather must cause severe suffering among the prisoners on Belle Isle, where there are not tents enough for so large a body of men. Their government may, however, now consent to an exchange. Day before yesterday some 40,000 rations were sent them by the United States flag-boat—which will suffice for three days, by which time I hope many will be taken away. Our Commissary-General Northrop has but little meat and bread for them, or for our own soldiers in the field. It must be confessed they have but small fare, and, indeed, all of us who have not been “picking and stealing,” fare badly. Yet we have quite as good health, and much better appetites than when we had sumptuous living.
November 21.—The steamer Welcome was attacked this morning at Waterproof, La., by guerrillas, with cannon planted on the levee, and twelve balls and shells fired through and into the cabin and other parts of the boat, besides nearly three hundred Minié balls from the sharpshooters along the banks of the river.—Acting Master J. F. D. Robinson, commander of the Satellite, and Acting Ensign Henry Walters, who was in command of the Reliance, were dismissed from the Navy of the United States, for gross dereliction in the case of the capture of their vessels on the twenty-third of August, 1863. The Department of the Navy regretted “the necessity of this action in the case of Acting Ensign Walters, inasmuch as the Court report that ‘during the attack he acted with bravery and to the best of his ability, and which, in some measure, relieves his want of precaution against surprise from its otherwise inexcusable character, and shows that his failure to take them proceeded more from inexperience than negligence.'”—General Orders No. 24.
—At Little Rock, Ark., a large Union meeting was held, at which the “restoration of State rights under the old Government” was advocated, and a great number of persons took the oath of allegiance and enrolled themselves for home defence.—English Rebel blockade-runner steamer Banshee, was captured by the United States steamers Delaware and Fulton, off Wilmington, North-Carolina.
—The steamer Black Hawk, when about half a mile below Red River Landing, on the Mississippi River, was fired into from the east bank of the river by a battery of ten or twelve guns, and about fifteen round shot and shell struck the boat. One shell exploded in the Texas, setting fire to and burning that part of the boat and pilot-house. As soon as the captain and officers found the boat on fire, they ran her on a sandbar on the west side of the river, and immediately put all the passengers on shore, after which the fire was extinguished. While the boat lay aground on the sand-bar, the sharp-shooters were pouring in their murderous Minié balls, of which some three hundred struck the boat in different parts of her cabin and hull. It was the guerrillas’ intention to follow the boat, but the gunboat stationed at the mouth of Red River followed them so close, pouring in shell among them, that she drove them back, after which the gunboat took the Black Hawk in tow, and carried her back to Red River, where she repaired sufficiently to proceed on her way. The casualties on board the boat were very severe. Mr. Samuel Fulton, a brother of the captain, was shot in the leg by a cannon-ball. His leg was afterward amputated below the knee. A colored man, by the name of Alfred Thomas, had his head blown off while lying flat down on the cable-deck. James Keller, of Louisville, belonging to the Twenty-second Kentucky volunteers, received a wound in the arm from a fragment of a shell. His arm was afterward amputated, and he soon after died A passenger was slightly wounded in the arm.
