March 2nd. Came off picket duty. My laundry and repairs on my clothes I have done by a German woman in town. Called for my laundry. Had a bath, put on clean clothes, for which I am very thankful. Received a pass, visited town. No soldier can enter town without a permit, excuse and pass must come from the company commander. Coming off picket or guard duty a soldier is excused from all duty during the day, except dress parade. Much pride is taken in dress parade, then we wear our good clothes.
Sunday, March 2, 2014
Huntsville, Wednesday, March 2. A very cold night, the wind whistling through the cracks of our shebang. Slept almost cold. Ground froze hard in the morning. The morning air dry and clear. On guard. Mounted at 9 A. M. Third relief. No one put in guard house. L. Leach, under guard, who has been confined for sixteen days in this miserable noisy hole for a trifling crime, but he stood it with resignation. Obliged to watch him in his slumber during the weary hours of the night. After relieved, lay beside my charge and slept.
2nd. Maj. Nettleton returned from Sandusky and started for Washington at 2 P. M. Thede and I rode horseback to Amherst. Saw Mary, Grandma’s and Helen’s folks. Called at Mr. Kline’s. Spent the evening at home. Uneasy for some reason. Am looking for a letter but it doesn’t come.
Return to Newport News.
March 2. The 11th Connecticut regiment arrived here today, and we are ordered back to the News where we rejoin a part of our old regiment which has just returned from home. This is good news to our boys who have been impatiently awaiting their return. So far as I am concerned I shall leave here with some regrets. We have been here several weeks and have got used to the officers and the place. The duty is light and somebody has got to stay here; as we have only a few months longer to remain we might as well be here as anywhere; but the orders are to go and orders must be obeyed. I will call on our officers and learn more about it. I am well pleased with these young fellows. They seem to«know their business and have a remarkable faculty of attending to it and letting other people attend to theirs. Their business appears to be in their quarters, amusing themselves with their reading, writing and games. They are not at all afflicted with exclusiveness and are not disposed to recline on their dignity. The boys have a standing invitation to call on them any time during office hours, and almost every evening some of them are in there. I called on them and inquired if they were going through to the News with us or stop with their regiment at Yorktown. They said it was not supposed that we knew enough to go from here to Newport News alone, and their orders were to march us down there, but they should try to get transportation from Yorktown. I said I thought that would be the most difficult job they had undertaken recently, that we could get transportation from here just as well as from Yorktown. But the idea was for us to march, as marching 50 or 100 miles a week, carrying heavy knapsacks, was a fine thing for soldiers. It took the kinks out of their legs and prevented them from becoming round shouldered. I inquired if they thought of making the journey on brook water? One of them partly closed his left eye and replied, “Not muchly.” I then said I should like an order on the commissary for a few much-needed supplies. The order was forthcoming, for which I made my best bow, and bidding them good evening took my leave.
March 2, Wednesday. There are exciting rumors respecting army movements in front. From what I learn, Kilpatrick, with a large cavalry force, is to make a raid upon Richmond with a view of capturing the place. He is sanguine that he will be successful. I have my doubts, for there have been so many attempts upon the place that some precautionary measures must have been taken for defending it. However, I am glad the movement is to be made if there is a reasonable hope of success.
Rear-Admiral Dahlgren came suddenly upon us this evening. I sent him leave three weeks or more ago. He is looking well after his long and fatiguing service.
March 2—Started back to camp. The weather was clear and cold. Got there at 7 in the evening, and I stiff from walking. We marched eighteen miles today.
Wednesday, 2d—Orders were issued this morning for the army not to destroy any more property while on the march. We just learned that while we were in Canton, General Hurlbut levied a tax on the citizens, compelling them to furnish corn meal and other articles of food for the army. Today we marched fifteen miles, reaching Clinton Crossroads by night, where we went into bivouac. The rebels are still following us and there was some skirmishing in the rear, which at times made it necessary to bring the light artillery into action.
by John Beauchamp Jones
MARCH 2D.—A slight snow on the ground this morning—but bright and cool. Last night, after I had retired to bed, we heard a brisk cannonading, and volleys of musketry, a few miles distant.
This morning an excitement, but no alarm, pervaded the city. It was certainly a formidable attempt to take the city by surprise. From the number of disgraceful failures heretofore, the last very recently, the enemy must have come to the desperate resolution to storm the city this time at all hazards. And indeed the coming upon it was sudden, and if there had been a column of 15,000 bold men in the assault, they might have penetrated it. But now, twenty-four hours subsequently, 30,000 would fail in the attempt.
The Department Clerks were in action in the evening in five minutes after they were formed in line. Capt. Ellery, Chief Clerk of 2d Auditor, was killed, and several were wounded. It rained fast all the time, and it was very dark. The enemy’s cavalry charged upon them, firing as they came; they were ordered to lie flat on the ground. This they did, until the enemy came within fifteen yards of them, when they rose and fired, sending the assailants to the right and left, helter-skelter. How many fell is not yet known.
To-day Gen. Hampton sent in 77 prisoners, taken six miles above town—one lieutenant-colonel among them; and Yankee horses, etc. are coming in every hour.
Gov. Vance writes that inasmuch as Judge Pearson still grants the writ of habeas corpus, and discharges all who have put substitutes in the army, on the ground of the unconstitutionality of the act of Congress, he is bound by his oath to sustain the judge, even to the summoning the military force of the State to resist the Confederate States authorities. But to avoid such a fatal collision, he is willing to abide the decision of the Supreme Court, to assemble in June; the substitute men, meantime, to be left unmolested. We shall soon see the President’s decision, which will probably be martial law.
Last night, when it was supposed probable that the prisoners of war at the Libby might attempt to break out, Gen. Winder ordered that a large amount of powder be placed under the building, with instructions to blow them up, if the attempt were made. He was persuaded, however, to consult the Secretary of War first, and get his approbation. The Secretary would give no such order, but said the prisoners must not be permitted to escape under any circumstances, which was considered sanction enough. Capt. ______ obtained an order for, and procured several hundred pounds of gunpowder, which were placed in readiness. Whether the prisoners were advised of this I know not; but I told Capt. ______ it could not be justifiable to spring such a mine in the absence of their knowledge of the fate awaiting them, in the event of their attempt to break out, —because such prisoners are not to be condemned for striving to regain their liberty. Indeed, it is the duty of a prisoner of war to escape if he can.
Gen. Winder addressed me in a friendly manner to-day, the first time in two years.
The President was in a bad humor yesterday, when the enemy’s guns were heard even in his office.
The last dispatch from Gen. Lee informs us that Meade, who had advanced, had fallen back again. But communications are cut between us and Lee; and we have no intelligence since Monday.
Gen. Wilcox is organizing an impromptu brigade here, formed of the furloughed officers and men found everywhere in the streets and at the hotels. This looks as if the danger were not yet regarded as over.
The Secretary of War was locked up with the Quartermaster and Commissary-Generals and other bureau officers, supposed to be discussing the damage done by the enemy to the railroads, etc. etc. I hope it was not a consultation upon any presumed necessity of the abandonment of the city!
We were paid to-day in $5 bills. I gave $20 for half a cord of wood, and $60 for a bushel of common white cornfield beans. Bacon is yet $8 per pound; but more is coming to the city than usual, and a decline may be looked for, I hope. The farmers above the city, who have been hoarding grain, meat, etc., will lose much by the raiders.
March 2.—General Custer’s expedition, which left Culpeper on the twenty-eighth of February to cooperate with the forces under General Kilpatrick, returned this day with only four men wounded slightly, and one rather badly. He captured and brought in about fifty prisoners, a large number of negroes, some three hundred horses, and destroyed a large quantity of valuable stores at Stannardsville, besides inflicting other damage to the rebels.— (Doc. 133.)
—President Lincoln directed that the sentences of all deserters who had been condemned to death, by court-martial, and that had not been otherwise acted upon by him, be mitigated to imprisonment during the war at the Dry Tortugas, Florida, where they would be sent under suitable guards by orders from the army commanders.—Captain Ross and twelve of his men, deserters from General Price’s rebel army, arrived at Van Buren, Arkansas.—Colonel A. D. Streigut made a report to the Committee on Military Affairs, of the lower house of Congress, in relation to the treatment the Union officers and soldiers received from the rebel authorities at Richmond and elsewhere in the South.—(Doc. 106.)
