Jan. 21. It now appears there are 225 of us who go into exile. We are to take all our earthly effects with us and get them along as best we can, notwithstanding a boat goes around with our camp equipage and might just as well take us, but that would be no punishment for our stubbornness. In justice to our officers, however, I learn that they endeavored to get transportation for our knapsacks but were not successful. We took our last dinner with the boys at Camp Upton, and at 2 p. m. were in line awaiting marching orders. Capt. Parkhurst is in command; Lieuts. Johnson and Saul, with Assistant Surgeon Hoyt accompany us. As we stand waiting orders the officers and boys gather around us and a feeling of sadness seems to pervade the whole crowd at the thought that this is the dissolution of the old regiment. Mutual handshakings and best wishes are exchanged, we say good-bye and move off.
And so they parted,
The angel up to heaven and Adam to his bower.
January 21st.—Both of us were too ill to attend Mrs. Davis’s reception. It proved a very sensational one. First, a fire in the house, then a robbery—said to be an arranged plan of the usual bribed servants there and some escaped Yankee prisoners. To-day the Examiner is lost in wonder at the stupidity of the fire and arson contingent. If they had only waited a few hours until everybody was asleep; after a reception the household would be so tired and so sound asleep. Thanks to the editor’s kind counsel maybe the arson contingent will wait and do better next time.
Letters from home carried Mr. Chesnut off to-day. Thackeray is dead. I stumbled upon Vanity Fair for myself, I had never heard of Thackeray before. I think it was in 1850. I know I had been ill at the New York Hotel,[1] and when left alone, I slipped down-stairs and into a bookstore that I had noticed under the hotel, for something to read. They gave me the first half of Pendennis. I can recall now the very kind of paper it was printed on, and the illustrations, as they took effect upon me. And yet when I raved over it, and was wild for the other half, there were people who said it was slow; that Thackeray was evidently a coarse, dull, sneering writer; that he stripped human nature bare, and made it repulsive, etc.
[1] The New York Hotel, covering a block front on Broadway at Waverley Place, was a favorite stopping place for Southerners for many years before the war and after it. In comparatively recent times it was torn down and supplanted by a business block.
Thursday, 21st—All things quiet in camp and no news. The weather is pleasant, though a little frosty every night. The army could stand a long siege, for we have plenty of wood and the quartermaster has in storage a large supply of provisions. This is fine soldiering.
21st. It is astonishing how much the people of E. Tenn. have put up with, and how ignorant and coarse they are. Have seen but one young lady in Tenn. whose clothes have fitted her and who has acted the lady. 27 miles from Chattanooga. Great time at dinner at one Shoemakers—rebel. Guard there—impudent. Got into Chattanooga at 4 P. M. Good time with the Co. Rough night. Routed twice.
Huntsville, Thursday, Jan. 21. As ordered yesterday, the drill call sounded at 9 A. M. and we fell in. Lieutenant Clark drilled in infantry drill for half an hour, and then had the chief of platoon drill them until the recall was sounded. The same in the afternoon. Bather awkward at first, but it is easier to remember than learn.
Diary And Memoranda, 1864
Jan. 21st. Several of the non-commissioned officers have asked to be reduced to the ranks. Col. T. is issuing orders by the bushel, very unpopular at the present time. Have got to come out on parade in the future.
January 21st.
The tumult increases. Our forces have burned the bridge at Strawberry Plains and have fallen back to within six miles of Knoxville. The wagon train arrived here this morning—also the usual number of stragglers.
I said the wagon train arrived. I should have said the little that remains of it. It was mostly destroyed or left for the enemy. It is the general belief that Longstreet has been heavily re-enforced and is about to make a determined effort to regain possession of East Tennessee.
by John Beauchamp Jones
JANUARY 21ST.—Gen. Longstreet reports some small captures of the enemy’s detached foraging parties.
The prisoners here have now been six days without meat; and Capt. Warner has been ordered by the Quartermaster-General to purchase supplies for them, relying no longer on the Commissary-General.
Last night an attempt was made (by his servants, it is supposed) to burn the President’s mansion. It was discovered that fire had been kindled in the wood-pile in the basement. The smoke led to the discovery, else the family might have been consumed with the house. One or two of the servants have absconded.
At the sale of a Jew to-day an etegere brought $6000; a barrel of flour, $220; and meal, $25 per bushel. All else in proportion. He is a jeweler, and intends leaving the country. He will succeed, because he is rich.
Yesterday the House passed the Senate bill, adjourning Congress on the 18th of February, to meet again in April. Mr. Barksdale, the President’s organ in the House, moved a reconsideration, and it will probably be reconsidered and defeated, although it passed by two to one.
Major Griswold being required by resolution of the Legislature to give the origin of the passport office, came to me to-day to write it for him. I did so. There was no law for it.
January 21.—The advance of the cavalry belonging to the National forces, in their retreat from Strawberry Plains, Tenn., reached Sevierville. Skirmishing was kept up all day between the National troops on one side of the Holston River, and the enemy on the other. The latter had a battery on College Hill, near Strawberry Plains, from which he played on the Nationals, while crossing the river. Comparatively little damage was done, the Union loss being not over a half-dozen wounded.—The shelling of Charleston from Fort Putnam continued night and day, at intervals of ten minutes. One gun alone has fired over one thousand one hundred rounds, at an elevation of forty degrees.—On account of the scarcity of grain in the department of the Ohio, and the factitious value given to it by the manufacture of whiskey, the distillation of that commodity was forbidden by Major-General Foster.— Rear-Admiral Farragut, accompanied by his staff, arrived at New-Orleans.
