Huntsville, Wednesday, March 9. Hitched up four guns and caisson and went out for battery drill under Lieutenant Hood. Horses balky and unused to work, had to unhitch one and returned with but little drill. I rode on lead, third caisson. Standing gun drill and parade in the afternoon. Rainy evening. Privates had a grand ball to-night in Alabama Hotel to try to excel the shoulder-strap fizzle of Feb. 22. I understand they had a grand time. No officers allowed, no one with shoulder straps on. Forty ladies in all. Lieutenant Clark little better with the smallpox.
Sunday, March 9, 2014
Jacksonville, Fla., March 9, 1864.
Dear Father:—
We are still at Jacksonville, and the whole force is hard at work nearly all the time, either on the fortifications or on picket. Last week we were moving every day. One day we would go outside the works and bivouac, and the next the pickets would fire a few guns and we would hustle inside again, to go back the next morning, and so on.
Saturday afternoon we moved into our present position and have remained here so far since.
Ever since the battle the men have slept with their shoes and equipments on, and they fall in every morning an hour before light and stand in line till sunrise. This looks to me very much like “locking the stable door,” etc.
Vague rumors reach us of all sorts of stories in the papers in regard to the battle. The Herald (of unquestionable veracity, so they say) says that the Eighth retired in confusion after Colonel Fribley fell. There may be some truth in it, but not as most persons would take it, i. e., meaning a complete rout. From all I can learn it appears that the regiment was under fire for more than two hours, though it did not seem to me so long. I never know anything of the time in a battle, though.
The veracious “Lieutenant Colonel Hall, Provost-Marshal, Department of the South,” is probably the author of this story. He was the first to inform Mrs. Fribley of the death of the colonel, and he chivalrously and consolingly added that his death was the result of his own rash exposure and that the officers of the regiment were “as badly scared as the men” and he “rallied the regiment himself.” It is all an infamous lie, and there is more than one officer in the regiment ready to tell him so at the first opportunity. He was seen riding about the field with his pistol cocked and shouting to every wounded man to halt. The man who could coolly tell a poor widow alone in this country that her husband was killed by his own fault, is a brute to say the least. Colonel Fribley exposed himself no more than was necessary. He dismounted as soon as the line was formed and was in the rear of the regiment when he was shot.
I want to see justice done the regiment, I don’t claim that they fought well, only as well as they could, and that the officers had all they could do to get them to fall back at all after the first halt. The “confusion” in which they “retired” was owing to this, that there was no line and the men would only leave the trees, behind which they were firing, on direct orders to do so. The regiment had no commander after the colonel and major fell, and every officer was doing the best he could with his squad independent of any one else.
I have been on a court-martial for the last week and probably will be for some time to come. Two cases have been finished thus far—Corporal Smith of our regiment, for mutiny in shooting his sergeant while in discharge of his duties, and another case similar. I am considered rather fortunate in being detailed, as it relieves me from other duties which are very onerous just now.
We are having beautiful weather, very much like our own July. We have not had forty-eight hours of rainy weather since we came here.
Julius Tyler writes that Dennison, Newton Bushnell and several others from Ararat are down in Tennessee in an engineer corps constructing a railroad.
News from New York and Brooklyn is all about the Sanitary Fair. Brooklyn is wild over it and the Independent is full of it.
I wish you would send me that money, $10 at a time, in letters to Hilton Head. I am getting short. Kiss ye babie for ye boy who fights ye rebels.
Jane Eliza Newton Woolsey to her daughters, Jane and Georgy.
8 Brevoort Place, March 9, 1864.
My dear Girls: We are all sitting together at the round table, Abby looking over the old letters from Point Lookout, and reading an incident occasionally aloud; Carry composing an address on her Bloomingdale orphans for their May anniversary. It is too amusing to have Caroline Murray and all those old lady-managers deferring to our Carry on all subjects connected with the asylum. . . . Mary is very much engaged in her arrangements for the floral department at the Fair, and very much interested in it. All the ladies are agog for novelties. They will be charmed with an occasional communication from the Hospital at Fairfax! We are to have a daily paper too, which is to beat the “Drum Beat”—” The Fair Champion.” Do send in poetry and prose and as many incidents as you can; get your doctor and the soldiers to send me an article for it, or letters for the Post Office. Send whatever you have to me, that I may have the pleasure of handing it to the committee on literature! Abby says, “Georgy, may I write out the German soldier-boy’s dream, or any other extract from your old letters that is not too stale ?” I am sure you will say yes. Abby is getting quite warmed up about the Fair; it is difficult not to feel so when everybody else is full of excitement about it. She is making a beautiful silk flag, a dozen or two of the new style of tidy-covers of muslin or embroidery edged with lace, beside lots of other little matters. Mary’s idea of having garden hats of white straw, with broad ribbons, and their ends painted in flowers, is a pretty one, to be hung in her arbor of flowers. She is also painting a lot of little wooden articles. Every thing of hers is to be of the garden style. We find a use now for all our old flower baskets, rustic stands, etc., and a huge pile of them now stands ready to be carried to the flower department. My chair, the cover for which I was obliged to give up working, is under way, also three silk comfortables, all spandy new, none of your old gowns, lined with silk and beautifully quilted in scrolls and medallions by a Fish-kill woman, and trimmed with ribbon quillings; also one dozen ladies’ dressing-sacks of various styles; also, one India satin sofa cushion, one embroidered worsted do., four elegant toilette cushions, one doll’s complete street dress, (even to an embroidered pocket-handkerchief), one doll’s stuffed chair, and other articles “too tedious to mention,” are all under way. I dare say we shall all do our full part, both in making and purchasing.
Mrs. Chauncey has already sold her baby-house, Sarah Coit tells me, for five hundred dollars! Kate Hunt has received her Parisian purchases for the Fair, for which she expects to realize a very large amount; says she is furnishing things to the amount of a thousand dollars! Eliza is coming down to-morrow. . . .
March 9th, 1864.
The beautiful weather of the past week terminated in a violent storm of rain, which continued without interruption forty-eight hours. The roads, before in good condition, are now a sea of mud, almost impassable; consequently that thirty days’ expedition, of which we have heard so much, is indefinitely postponed. But the sky is once more clear, and the soil here soon dries out. Perhaps, in another week, they may make a start. I have been suffering lately from what the Doctor calls periodical neuralgia. It comes on at regular intervals, and is very painful. I am anxious to get around again. The men are very kind, nurses and convalescents, but everything seems to go wrong. It takes two men to do my work, and then, of course, they do not do it as I would. It is much like managing a school of unruly boys. It requires the same tact, and the gift of government which few possess. The Inspector complimented me on the neatness and general appearance of my ward. Our ward Surgeon told him I kept it fit for inspection every day.
Thursday, 9th.—Reported Federals advancing again.
9th. Wednesday spent the day at home.. Somewhat rainy. Played chess with Thede and read in “Dutch Republic.” What is more trying to be borne than suspense.
March 9, Wednesday. Went last evening to the Presidential reception. Quite a gathering; very many that are not usually seen at receptions were attracted thither, I presume, from the fact that General Grant was expected to be there. He came about half-past nine. I was near the centre of the reception room, when a stir and buzz attracted attention, and it was whispered that General Grant had arrived. The room was not full, the crowd having passed through to the East Room. I saw some men in uniform standing at the entrance, and one of them, a short, brown, dark-haired man, was talking with the President. There was hesitation, a degree of awkwardness in the General, and embarrassment in that part of the room, and a check or suspension of the moving column. Soon word was passed around for “Mr. Seward.” “General Grant is here,” and Seward, who was just behind me, hurried and took the General by the hand and led him to Mrs. Lincoln, near whom I was standing. The crowd gathered around the circle rapidly, and, it being intimated that it would be necessary the throng should pass on, Seward took the General’s arm and went with him to the East Room. There was clapping of hands in the next room as he passed through, and all in the East Room joined in it as he entered. A cheer or two followed. All of which seemed rowdy and unseemly. An hour later the General and Mr. Seward and Stanton returned. Seward beckoned me and introduced me and my two nieces.
To-day I received a note from the Secretary of State to be at the Executive Mansion quarter before 1 P.M. The Cabinet was all there, and General Grant and his staff with the Secretary of War and General Halleck entered. The President met him and presented to the General his commission (As Lieutenant-General of the United States Army) with remarks, to which the latter responded. Both read their remarks. General Grant was somewhat embarrassed.
A conversation of half an hour followed on various subjects, but chiefly the war and the operations of Sherman.
Wednesday, 9th—It rained all day. We are still on guard at the roundhouse. Troops are on the move, both up and down the river as fast as the transports can carry them. New troops are to garrison Vicksburg from now on. We are glad to leave the place, for we have been in and around Vicksburg for more than fifteen months, and have seen some very hard service in that time. But there is something about Vicksburg, the Gibraltar of the West, that is really fascinating.
by John Beauchamp Jones
MARCH 9TH.—A frosty morning, with dense fog; subsequently a pretty day.
This is the famine month. Prices of every commodity in the market—up, up, up. Bacon, $10 to $15 per pound; meal, $50 per bushel. But the market-houses are deserted, the meat stalls all closed, only here and there a cart, offering turnips, cabbages, parsnips, carrots, etc., at outrageous prices. However, the superabundant paper money is beginning to flow into the Treasury, and that reflex of the financial tide may produce salutary results a few weeks hence.
March 9.—A fight took place near Suffolk, Virginia, between a force of rebels and a portion of the Second Virginia colored regiment, commanded by Colonel Cole, resulting in a loss of twenty-five rebels, and twenty killed, wounded, and missing of the Nationals.[1]
—Forty of the Thirtieth Pennsylvania cavalry were captured by guerrillas about a mile and a half from Bristoe Station, Virginia. They were surrounded and compelled to surrender. Several of them afterward escaped.
—The steamer Hillman was attacked by a gang of guerrillas, stationed on the Missouri shore opposite Island No. 18 in the Mississippi River, and several persons were killed and wounded.
—President Lincoln this afternoon formally presented to Major-General Grant his commission as Lieutenant-Gcnoral. The ceremony took place in the Cabinet chamber in the presence of many distinguished personages. General Grant having entered the room, the President rose and addressed him thus:
“General Grant: The nation’s appreciation of what you have done, and its reliance upon you for what there remains to do in the existing great struggle, are now presented with this commission constituting you Lieutenant-General in the army of the United States. With this high honor devolves upon you also a corresponding responsibility. As the country herein trusts you, so, under God, it will sustain you. I scarcely need to add that with what I have spoken for the nation, goes my own hearty personal concurrence.”
To which General Grant replied as follows:
“Mr. President: I accept this commission with gratitude for the high honor conferred. With the aid of the noble armies that have fought on so many fields for our common country, it will be my earnest endeavor not to disappoint your expectations. I feel the full weight of the responsibilities now devolving on me, and I know that if they are met, it will be due to those armies, and, above all, to the favor of that Providence which leads both nations and men.”
The President then introduced the General to all the members of the Cabinet, after which the company were seated and about half an hour was spent in conversation.
—Major-general Peck, in general order, issued the following from his headquarters at Newbern, N. C.: “The moment when we are threatened with an advance by the enemy, is the proper time to remind the gallant officers and soldiers of this command of the results of the recent operations in North-Carolina.
“Besides the repulse of General Pickett’s army at Newbern, the following have been captured: Six officers, two hundred and eighty-one prisoners and dangerous rebels, five hundred contrabands, two hundred and fifty arms and accoutrements, one hundred and thirty-eight horses and mules, eleven bales of cotton, one piece of artillery, caisson complete, one flag, many saddles, harnesses, and wagons. Much property of the rebel government has been destroyed from inability to remove it, as appears by a partial list: Two hundred and fifty thousand pounds of pork, eighty barrels of lard, seventy-five barrels of meat, twenty thousand bushels of corn, thirty- two barrels of beef, five hogsheads of sugar, five thousand empty sacks, one corn-mill, ten wagons, one ton of tobacco, eighteen mules, two warehouses of salt, and two extensive salt manufactories. Thousands of deserters have; entered the lines, and resumed their allegiance to the Federal Union with joy and gladness. These valuable services will he appreciated by the Government and the people, and this brief allusion to them should stimulate all to renewed energy in the final campaign against the revolutionists.”
[1] The following Is the Southern version of the story:
Weldon, March 9.—The enemy occupied Suffolk in force on Sunday. We attacked them to-day, and, after a short struggle, drove them in a rout out of the town, killing a number, capturing one piece of artillery and a large quantity of commissary and quartermaster stores. The enemy are flying to Portsmouth, burning bridges, and leaving every thing behind. We pursued them beyond Bernard’s Mills.
M. W. Ransom, Brig.-Gen.
G. E. Pickett, Major-Gen.
