Saturday, 13th—We left Decatur early this morning and marched fifteen miles before going into bivouac. The Sixteenth Corps corralled their train and leaving a brigade to guard it pushed forward after the rebels. Skirmishing in the front continued and was brisk at times. The weather is pleasant and the roads are fine for marching. There is still plenty of forage along the way. This morning I saw a woman with her children forcibly moved out of her residence, all the household goods and the house set on fire. The deed was ordered by our officers, for they had been informed that her husband was out in the brush with his rifle, killing Union soldiers at every opportunity. The plantation home had the appearance of wealth.
Thursday, February 13, 2014
February 13th.—My husband is writing out some resolutions for the Congress. He is very busy, too, trying to get some poor fellows reprieved. He says they are good soldiers but got into a scrape. Buck came in. She had on her last winter’s English hat, with the pheasant’s wing. Just then Hood entered most unexpectedly. Said the blunt soldier to the girl: “You look mighty pretty in that hat; you wore it at the turnpike gate, where I surrendered at first sight.” She nodded and smiled, and flew down the steps after Mr. Chesnut, looking back to say that she meant to walk with him as far as the Executive Office.
The General walked to the window and watched until the last flutter of her garment was gone. He said: “The President was finding fault with some of his officers in command, and I said: ‘Mr. President, why don’t you come and lead us yourself; I would follow you to the death.'” “Actually, if you stay here in Richmond much longer you will grow to be a courtier. And you came a rough Texan.”
Mrs. Davis and General McQueen came. He tells me Muscoe Garnett is dead. Then the best and the cleverest Virginian I know is gone. He was the most scholarly man they had, and his character was higher than his requirements.
To-day a terrible onslaught was made upon the President for nepotism. Burton Harrison’s and John Taylor Wood’s letters denying the charge that the President’s cotton was unburned, or that he left it to be bought by the Yankees, have enraged the opposition. How much these people in the President’s family have to bear! I have never felt so indignant.
Huntsville, Saturday, Feb. 13. Nights very cold, day warm and cloudy. Assembly sounded at 8 A. M. with orders to “turn out” and police the park and grounds speedily, as we expected to march to town for pay at 10 A. M. No drill or parade, but we did not get paid off. Camp unusually lively during the day. Ball playing and the boxing gloves in constant use. At night a merry dance went on in the open air with music from the fiddle and bow. Ladies dispensed with from necessity. Mail arrived but none for me.
[Diary] Saturday, February 13,1864.
Mr. Lynch came in to-night with the dreadful news that the privilege of exempting lands was not to be given to the people, and that the Tax Commissioners are to proceed with their former plan. This will create great ill-feeling towards the Northerners and be a fearful disappointment to the people. Elder Demas said to Mrs. Murray that he wishes all the white people would go to the white church and worship together and leave the black alone in their own brick church. They will wish for further isolation soon when the speculators buy the lands.
Diary And Memoranda, 1864
Feb. 13th. Had a close inspection by Col. T. Did not give any companies much praise. Carried a knapsack all the time, a very pretty and useful article for a soldier.
February 13, Saturday. Senator Hale called on me today. Was very plausible and half-confidential. Baker, the detective, had been before his committee. Had told many things of men in the Department. Lowering his voice, Hale said, “He tells some things about your Chief Clerk that are very suspicious.” I cautioned the Senator about receiving all the gossip and suspicion of Baker, who had no powers of discrimination, little regard for truth, believed everything bad, suspected everybody, and had no regard for the character and rights of any man. Told him I would be answerable for the honesty of Faxon, that no truthful man could doubt it, and that, having heard Baker’s scandal and suspicion, I requested him to bring me a fact, or find one if he could from his lying detective.
This pitiful Senator is devoting his time and that of his committee in a miserable attempt to bring reproach upon the Navy Department, to make points against it, to pervert facts, and to defame men of the strictest integrity. A viler prostitution of Senatorial position and place I have never witnessed. The primary object is to secure a reelection for himself, and a love of defamation attends it. Had a pleasant half-hour with Preston King, who made a special call to see me. Few men in Congress are his equal for sagacity, comprehensiveness, sound judgment, and fearlessness of purpose. Such statesmen do honor to their State and country. His loss to the Senate cannot be supplied. I like his successor, Morgan, who has good sense and will, in the main, make a good Senator, but he cannot make King’s place good. I know not who can. Why are the services of such men set aside by small politicians? But King is making himself useful, and has come to Washington from patriotic motives to advise with our legislators and statesmen, and to cheer and encourage the soldiers.
I sometimes think he is more true to principles than I am myself. Speaking of Fernando Wood, we each expressed a common and general sentiment of surprise and disgust that any district could elect such a Representative. But the whole city of New York is alike leprous and rotten. This brought the question, How can such a place be regenerated and purified? What is the remedy? While I expressed a reluctant conviction, which is gradually coming over me, that in such a vicious community free suffrage was abased, and it was becoming a problem whether there should not be an outside movement, or some restriction on voting to correct palpable evil in municipal government, King maintained the old faith and would let the evil correct itself. If factious or partisan violence will go so far as to elect men like Wood or Brooks; if men of property and character will prostitute themselves to vote for them and consent to have their city misgoverned and themselves misrepresented, let them take the consequences. The evil will correct itself. After they have disgraced themselves sufficiently and loaded themselves with taxes and debt, they will finally rouse to a sense of duty, and retrieve the city from misrule and bad management and their district from misrepresentation. Such is the reasoning of Preston King.
I felt a return of old enthusiasm of former years, when in the security of youth I believed the popular voice was right, and that the majority would come to right results in every community; but alas! experience has shaken the confidence I once had. In an agricultural district, or a sparse population the old rule holds, and I am not prepared to deny King’s conclusions, but my faith in the rectitude of the strange material that compose a majority of the population of our large cities is not strong. The floating mass who have no permanent abiding-place, who are the tools of men like Wood and Brooks, who are not patriots but party demagogues, who have no fixed purpose or principle, should not by their votes, control and overpower the virtuous and good. Yet they do. Some permanent element is wanting in our system. We need more stability and character. In our municipalities there needs some modification for good government.
by John Beauchamp Jones
FEBRUARY 13TH.—Bright, beautiful weather, with frosty nights.
The dispatches I cut from the papers to-day are interesting. Gen. Wise, it appears, has met the enemy at last, and gained a brilliant success—and so has Gen. Finnegan. But the correspondence between the President and Gen. Johnston, last spring and summer, indicates constant dissensions between the Executive and the generals. And the President is under the necessity of defending Northern born generals, while Southern born ones are without trusts, etc.
INTERESTING FROM FLORIDA.
OFFICIAL DISPATCH.
“CHARLESTON, February 11th, 1864.
“To GEN. S. COOPER.
“Gen Finnegan has repulsed the enemy’s force at LakeCity—details not known.
“(Signed) G. T. BEAUREGARD.”
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SECOND DISPATCH.
“CHARLESTON, February 11th—11 A.M.
“To GEN. S. COOPER.
“Gen. Finnegan’s success yesterday was very creditable—the enemy’s force being much superior to his own. His reinforcements had not reached here, owing to delays on the road. Losses not yet reported.
“(Signed) G. T. BEAUREGARD.”
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REPULSE OF THE ENEMY NEAR CHARLESTON.
OFFICIAL DISPATCH.
“CHARLESTON, February 12th, 1864.
“Gen. Wise gallantly repulsed the enemy last evening on John’s Island. He is, to-day, in pursuit. Our loss very trifling. The force of the enemy is about 2000; ours about one-half.
“(Signed) G. T. BEAUREGARD.”
Every day we recapture some of the escaped Federal officers. So far we have 34 of the 109.
The President sent over a “confidential” sealed letter to the Secretary to-day. I handed it to the Secretary, who was looking pensive.
Dr. McClure, of this city, who has been embalming the dead, and going about the country with his coffins, has been detected taking Jews and others through the lines. Several live men have been found in his coffins.
Again it is reported that the enemy are advancing up the Peninsula in force, and, to-morrow being Sunday, the local troops may be called out. But Gen. Rhodes is near with his division, so no serious danger will be felt, unless more than 20,000 attack us. Even that number would not accomplish much—for the city is fortified strongly.
It is rumored by blockade-runners that gold in the North is selling at from 200 to 500 per cent. premium. If this be true, our day of deliverance is not distant.
