Huntsville, Friday, March 4. Evie Evans and myself went to the city on pass. Visited the Christian Commission rooms. Bought stamps. Also went to the colored school under charge of Chaplain of 17th Colored. Had school-teachers, being volunteers from the ranks, teaching the little woolly-heads their “A. B. C.’s”. One class of youngsters was taught by a large negro. A class of young ladies was reading in the Second Reader. All seemed attentive and anxious to receive the instruction but poorly imparted to them. Harnesses were opened and distributed to the platoons. I was given one set. No horses.
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
4th. Read and visited during the morning. Floy, Thede and I went to Cleveland on the P. M. train. Went to the various halls at Fair (Sanitary Commission) and to Uncle’s to tea. Mrs. D. so hoarse as to be unable to speak. Floy and Thede went to Minstrels. I called at Mr. Cobb’s. Spent a very pleasant evening with F. and Mrs. Cobb. Saw Floy off on morning train.
March 4 — Another alarm reached camp to-day, that the raiders were advancing on our camp. We moved out on the Charlottesville road and were ready for their approach, but like yesterday the report was false. I wonder how and where all the flying rumors and false reports originate; I would certainly like to find the nest where they are hatched, just to see what kind of egg or germ it takes to produce such fallacious reports and how they are developed.
March 4th.—The enemy has been reenforced and is on us again. Met Wade Hampton, who told me my husband was to join him with some volunteer troops; so I hurried home. Such a cavalcade rode up to luncheon! Captain Smith Lee and Preston Hampton, the handsomest, the oldest and the youngest of the party. This was at the Prestons’. Smith Lee walked home with me; alarm-bells ringing; horsemen galloping; wagons rattling. Dr. H. stopped us to say “Beast” Butler was on us with sixteen thousand men. How scared the Doctor looked! And, after all, it was only a notice to the militia to turn out and drill.
March 4, Friday. Seward sends me the copy of a communication which he proposes to send to Lord Lyons respecting the rights and duties of our naval officers, particularly those on blockade duty in the Gulf. It is a singularly weak and erring document. My first thought was to criticize and attempt to correct it, but this could not well be done without making a new paper of it and would appear badly. Talked over the subject with Fox and also with Watkins. Finally gave the latter my views, suggested the points, and directed him to prepare a letter based on these points.
A pleasant Cabinet-meeting. Chase and Blair both absent. Seward and Stanton had a corner chat and laugh about Chase, whose name occasionally escaped them, and whom they appeared to think in a dilemma, and they were evidently not unwilling we should know the subject of their conversation. I could not avoid hearing some of their remarks, though I changed my position to escape them.
A week or two since, Admiral Lee sent me certain papers in the case of the steamer Princeton, then at Norfolk, among them a permit from General Butler, authorizing the vessel to go on a trading voyage in the sounds and rivers of North Carolina, provided Admiral Lee would consent. The latter would not consent without orders from the Navy Department, and I approved his course in refusing. Now the Messrs. Oliver & Co. file a paper arguing their claims to proceed on the voyage under a permit of General Butler, dated last December, authorizing the Princeton to clear for Hampton Roads. This paper of Oliver & Co. is addressed to the Assistant Secretary and ingeniously designed to cover the transaction. Watkins and Fox were disposed to favor the latter application, but I told them it was not permissible, pointed out the discrepancies, told them the vessel had, as authorized, cleared for Hampton Roads, but she wanted to go further, which that permit did not warrant; and a further permit was secured.
March 4—I am as stiff as an old man this morning from yesterday’s march on the plank road.
Friday, 4th—The army left bivouac at daylight this morning and the vanguard reached Vicksburg at 2 o’clock, while our rear did not get in till dark. We found our camps, clothing and all in good shape. The Sixteenth Army Corps went into camp out east of Vicksburg. We were relieved from the duty of headquarters’ guard this morning. The expedition was out thirty-two days, and marched three hundred and twenty-five miles; it destroyed an immense amount of property, thus inflicting a tremendous blow to the Confederacy, and foraged on the country the whole way.
Painting by Conrad Wise Chapman.
This battery was on James Island; of the two figures on horesback, one was an officer of the regular artillery, and one an officer of the regular infantry of the Confederate States. – Conrad Wise Chapman, 1898.
by John Beauchamp Jones
MARCH 4TH.—Bright and frosty in the morning; warm and cloudy in the afternoon. The enemy have disappeared.
On the 17th inst., Gen. Lee wrote the Secretary of War that he had received a letter from Gen. Longstreet, asking that Pickett’s Division be in readiness to join him; also that a brigade of Gen. Buckner’s Division, at Dalton, be sent him at once. He says the force immediately in front of him consists of the 4th, 11th, 9th, and 23d corps, besides a large body of cavalry from Middle Tennessee. Gen. Lee says the railroad from Chattanooga to Knoxville, being about completed, will enable the enemy to combine on either Johnston or Longstreet. He (Gen. Lee) says, however, that the 4th and 11th corps are small, and may have been consolidated; the 23d also is small; but he does not know the strength of the enemy. He thinks Pickett’s Division should be sent as desired, and its place filled with troops from South Carolina, etc., where operations will probably soon cease. The Secretary sent this to the President. The President sent it back today, indorsed, “How can Pickett’s Division be replaced?—J. D.”
Henly’s Battalion returned this evening; and Custis can resume his school, unless he should be among the list doomed to the rank in the field, for which he is physically incapable, as Surgeon Garnett, the President’s physician, has certified.
March 4.—The English steamer Don, while attempting to run the blockade of Wilmington, N. C, was captured by the National steamer Pequot—Michael Hahn was installed as Governor of Louisiana, at New-Orleans. An address was made by General Banks, and other interesting ceremonies performed.—Orders requiring the draft to be made on the tenth instant were suspended.
