February 8th. My birthday, 19 years old. Left Baltimore at 9 o’clock last night. Passed through Philadelphia about midnight. Arrived in Jersey City at 8 A. M. Made my way to the home of my relations, taking breakfast with my grandmother. All were surprised and glad to see me. New York was my early boyhood home, having been born in that city, but left it when eleven years old, going to Connecticut to live. My time passed quickly and very pleasantly. Nothing happened to mar the pleasure of my visit.
Saturday, February 8, 2014
Monday, 8th—We left bivouac at 8 o’clock and covered seventeen miles today. There was some skirmishing in front. The roads were good and but few bridges to cross. All is quiet in the rear. This section of the country is heavily timbered, mostly pine, and the soil is quite sandy. It is thinly settled through here.
8th. Saw several committees in C. About 11 made arrangements for rest of company in Polk Township, Cranford County. $100 bounty. Several of us went to town and to theatre. Restaurant first for supper.
Huntsville, Monday, Feb. 8. Fine sunny day. Signed payroll in the morning, which was a pleasant duty as the “locker” is getting light. Several articles were stolen from camp lately and a guard was detailed to watch the quarters after night. 3 P. M. assembly sounded and all men forbidden entering their tents, while Lieutenant Jenawein, Sergeant Hauxhurst, and Corporal Neefe searched the quarters. One revolver was recovered in the Battery; 12th Wisconsin Battery, under the same process. Dillon very angry.
[Diary] February 8.
A busy day baking. I find our flour so miserable that the cakes, etc., were a failure. Sat up very late writing home. Walked out in the afternoon and bought an old lounge at the Smallpox Hospital. We gathered jonquils and saw the lovely view from the end of the village point — the wide St. Helena Sound, Morgan Island and Otter Island in the distance, and the Kingfisher[1] lying there.
We have very little fodder for our horses and do not know where to look for more. That is going to be a difficult question here. We hear that our poor, starving Jimsebub was shot by some of the people for trespass on the corn-patches. To-night Mr. Lynch came and we had a talk over Mr. Phillips, who has out-generaled everybody. He has come up here to see about the Baptist parsonage.
[1] The blockader.
by John Beauchamp Jones
FEBRUARY 8TH.—The air is filled with rumors—none reliable.
It is said Gen. Lee is much provoked at the alarm and excitement in the city, which thwarted a plan of his to capture the enemy on the Peninsula; and the militia and the Department Battalions were kept yesterday and to-day under arms standing in the cold, the officers blowing their nails, and “waiting orders,” which came not. Perhaps they were looking for the “conspirators;” a new hoax to get “martial law.”
A Union meeting has been held in Greensborough, N. C. An intelligent writer to the department says the burden of the speakers, mostly lawyers, was the terrorism of Gen. Winder and his corps of rogues and cut-throats, Marylanders, whose operations, it seems, have spread into most of the States. Mr. Sloan, the writer, says, however, a vast majority of the people are loyal.
It is said Congress is finally about to authorize martial law.
My cabbages are coming up in my little hot-bed—half barrel.
Gen. Maury writes from Mobile that he cannot be able to obtain any information leading to the belief of an intention on the part of the enemy to attack Mobile. He says it would require 40,000 men, after three months’ preparation, to take it.
Gov. Brown, of Georgia, says the Confederate States Government has kept bad faith with the Georgia six months’ men; and hence they cannot be relied on to relieve Gen. Beauregard, etc. (It is said the enemy are about to raise the siege of Charleston.) Gov. B. says the State Guard are already disbanded. He says, moreover, that the government here, if it understood its duty, would not seize and put producers in the field, but would stop details, and order the many thousand young officers everywhere swelling in the cars and hotels, and basking idly in every village, to the ranks. He is disgusted with the policy here. What are we coming to?
Everywhere our troops in the field, whose terms of three years will expire this spring, are re-enlisting for the war. This is an effect produced by President Lincoln’s proclamation; that to be permitted to return to the Union, all men must first take an oath to abolish slavery!
February 8.—The expedition sent by General Butler, with the object of making a sudden dash into Richmond, Va., and releasing the Union prisoners confined there, returned, having been unsuccessful. The following are the facts of the affair: On Saturday morning, February sixth, General Butler’s forces, under command of Brigadier-General Wistar, marched from Yorktown by the way of New-Kent Court-House. The cavalry arrived at half-past two o’clock yesterday morning at Bottom’s Bridge, across the Chickahominy, ten miles from Richmond, for the purpose of making a raid into Richmond, and endeavoring, by a surprise, to liberate the prisoners there.
The cavalry reached the bridge at the time appointed, marching, in sixteen hours and a half, forty-seven miles. A force of infantry followed in their rear, for the purpose of supporting them. It was expected to surprise the enemy at Bottom’s Bridge, who had had for some time only a small picket there. The surprise failed, because, as the Richmond Examiner of to-day says, “a Yankee deserter gave information in Richmond of the intended movement.” The enemy had felled a large amount of timber, so as to block up and obstruct the roads and make it impossible for our cavalry to pass. After remaining at the bridge from two o’clock until twelve, General Wistar joined them with his infantry, and the whole object of the surprise having been defeated, they all returned to Williamsburgh. On his march back to New-Kent Court-House, his rear was attacked by the enemy, but they were repulsed without loss. A march by the Union infantry, three regiments of whom were colored, of more than eighty miles, was made in fifty-six hours. The cavalry marched over one hundred miles in fifty hours.
—The office of the newspaper Constitution and Union, at Fairfield, Iowa, edited by David Sheward, was visited by company E, Second Iowa, to-day. The type and paper were thrown out of the windows, and subscription-books destroyed.
—General Foster telegraphed from Knoxville, under date of yesterday, that an expedition sent against Thomas and his band of Indians and whites, at Quallatown, N. C, had returned completely successful. They surprised the town, killed and wounded two hundred and fifteen, took fifty prisoners, and dispersed the remainder of the gang in the mountains. The Union loss was two killed and six wounded.—General Grant’s Despatch.
