January 6th. While in town I saw and bought a pair of kip leather boots. Keep them well greased. They are good for walking through snow and water as well as Virginia mud. Try to keep my feet warm and dry. The enemy is reported to be again making raids in this vicinity. The 3d and 4th Pennsylvania Reserves came here as reinforcements. In camp near our regiment. A good gang of fellows. Soon get well acquainted with them.
Monday, January 6, 2014
Wednesday, 6th—The time for re-enlisting with the bounty expired last night at midnight. The boys who re-enlisted are now looking forward to going home on a thirty-day furlough in the spring.
6th. About quarters most of the day. Read in “Autocrat of the Breakfast Table.” Cold. Evening Dan and I went to Regt. Good time. Lost sugar. Back late. Little “taffy” and to bed.
January 6th, 1864.
It has snowed all day, and the night is fearfully cold, but in our new quarters we feel it not.
This has been a day of unusual excitement in Knoxville. A legal murder has been committed in public.
In other words, a Rebel spy has been executed. His name is Dodd, of the Eighth Tennessee Cavalry. I did not witness the execution. I did not feel like it. I saw the procession as it passed my door. First, a regiment of soldiers; next a cart with the victim sitting on his coffin; behind, another regiment, with fixed bayonets. On each side, the street was crowded with men and women, eager to see a fellow mortal die. I am forced to see enough of human misery. Would God I might never see more. Oh, this cruel, murderous war! Will it never end? Perhaps, when political intrigue can keep it going no longer.
Knoxville, Tenn., January 6th, 1864.
It is a serious thing to have the care of sick and wounded men. They are like children—fretful, impatient, exacting. I was a stranger to all but one when I came here; now I count my friends by scores. I endeavored to do my duty. My patients soon discovered this, and I do not lack employment. There is one old fellow—a Massachusetts man—wounded through the cheeks. He is as cross as a grizzly, ferocious as a hyena. The nurses can do nothing with him. He cannot talk plain, and if they do not understand the first time, he flies into a rage and curses them soundly. The first time he called on me to dress his wound he snatched the dish from my hand, saying he wanted some one to do it who understood it. I said nothing, but let him do it himself. The next day he asked me to warm some water to dress his wound. “No,” said I, “I will have nothing to do with you until you can treat me as one man should treat another. When that time comes I will do all I can for you, willingly, cheerfully.” In a day or two he came to me and asked, very civilly, if I would try and get him some tea, as his mouth was so bad he could eat nothing. “With pleasure,” said I. From that day he is my fast friend. The boys call him “the boss’s pet tiger.
Larkinsville, Wednesday, Jan. 6. Cold and freezing. Everything quiet, the theme of the last five days having been dropped since the time expired. At evening roll call marching orders were read to us to leave at 8 A. M. in the morning. All extra baggage, harness, etc. loaded on cars and a detail of twenty men to accompany them. Camp was still at an early hour. All felt bad at being obliged to leave their comfortable quarters, so recently built by hard labor, and face the stern, hard march. None of the quarters were to be destroyed as they were to be occupied by troops coming in to occupy the place.
January 6. A patent lawyer named Dickerson prepared and published what he calls a plea or argument in a case before the court in Washington that is a tissue of the vilest misrepresentations and fabrications that could well be gathered together, if I may judge from such parts as I have seen. I do not see the New York Herald, in which it was published and paid for. The great object appears to have been a reckless assault on Isherwood, Engineer-in-Chief, but the Department is also in every way assailed. Of course the partisan press in opposition take up and indorse as truth these attacks, and vicious men in Congress of the opposition and equally vicious persons of the Administration side adopt and reëcho these slanders. It is pitiable to witness this morbid love of slander and defamation. That there may have been errors I cannot doubt, but not in the matter charged by Dickerson.
I think Isherwood has exerted himself to discharge his duty, and serve the government and country. His errors and faults — for he cannot be exempt — I shall be glad to have detected and corrected, but the abuse bestowed is wholly unjustifiable and inexcusable. As he is connected with the Navy Department, any accusation against him, or any one connected with the Department, furnishes the factious, like J. P. Hale, an opportunity to vent their spite and malignity by giving it all the importance and notoriety they can impart. I hear of Hale and H. Winter Davis and one or two others cavilling and exerting themselves to bear down upon the Engineer-in-Chief. There is an evident wish that he should be considered and treated as a rogue and a dishonest man, unless he can prove himself otherwise. Truth is not wanted, unless it is against him and the Department.
January 6th. Our quarters, now completed, are extremely comfortable; they are wall tents set up on split logs, which raise the tent about two feet from the ground, and thus provide for a fireplace made of mud and sticks, as is also the chimney. We have a bunk big enough for two, well filled with cedar branches, and to crown all, a real door fitted to the tent, so that we may be said to live in luxury. We have also a new band, this time a division band, and it is to be stationed at our own headquarters. Major John Hancock, the adjutant-general, organized it in Boston. It is led by Higgins, a superb musician, and is equipped with instruments which cost the officers of this division four thousand dollars.
The prisoners have put up a large log house, in which the poor wretches will be tried. It is commodious, has an immense fireplace and pretty good roof, and we expect to hold our first session to-morrow and renew the dispensation of justice. The general takes great interest in military law and enjoys the exercise of his reviewing authority immensely. We usually go over the completed cases after dinner, when I give him all the information I possess. He is disposed always to leniency, and as I am, too, the men in our division must be deserving of it, if they are severely punished.
by John Beauchamp Jones
JANUARY 6TH.—Yesterday Mr. Moffitt, Lieut.-Col. Ruffin’s agent (commissary), was in the market buying beef for Gen. Lee’s army! And this same Moffitt was in September selling beef to the same butchers (as they say) at from 40 to 50 cts. gross, the impressing price in the country being 20 cts.
On the 2d inst. Gen. Lee wrote the President that he had just heard of two droves of cattle from the West, destined for his army, being ordered to Richmond. [He does not say by whom, or for what purpose. He knew not.] He says he has but one day’s meat rations, and he fears he will not be able to retain the army in the field. The President sent a copy of this to the Commissary-General, with a few mild remarks, suggesting that he shall get such orders from the Secretary of War as are necessary in such an emergency. In response to this the Commissary-General makes a chronological list of his letters to Gen. Lee and others, pretending that if certain things were not done, the army, some day, would come to want, and taking great credit for his foresight, etc. This table of contents he ran first to the department with, but not finding the Secretary, he carried it to the President, who returned it without comment to Col. N. yesterday, and to-day the Secretary got it, not having seen it before. Well, if Col. N. had contracted with Capt. Montgomery for the 1,000,000 pounds of salt beef, it would have been delivered ere this. But the Secretary never saw Capt. M.’s offer at all!
January 6.—Major General Foster, from his headquarters at Knoxville, issued the following order: “All able-bodied colored men, between the ages of eighteen and forty-five, within our lines, except those employed in the several staff departments, officers’ servants, and those servants of loyal citizens who prefer remaining with their masters, will be sent forthwith to Knoxville, Loudon, or Kingston, Tennessee, to be enrolled under the direction of Brigadier-General Davis Tillson, Chief of Artillery, with a view to the formation of a regiment of artillery, to be composed of troops of African descent.”
—By orders from General Foster, Brigadier General O. B. Wilcox was assigned to the command of the district of Clinch, including the region between the Cumberland and Clinch Mountains, and extending from Big Creek Gap on the west, to the eastern line of the State of Tennessee, on the east.
