Huntsville, Saturday, March 26. A warm, windy day. No drill or parade. Washed in the morning. Policed camp and park in the afternoon, which took us about two hours. Detail of seventeen went out foraging with Lieutenant Jenawein. Will not return until to-morrow. Orders received to put this Division upon a “field footing” immediately, which is supposed to mean something. The train from Nashville to-day came in by way of Decatur. Major Generals Sherman and McPherson were on board, and are now in town where the headquarters are to be established.
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Camp White, March 26, 1864.
Dear Mother: — We are now having a cold rain-storm, but are all well. There is considerable sickness among our new recruits of the usual sort — measles, mumps, and a little smallpox and fever. Nothing very serious so far, and as the weather gets warmer we hope to get clear of it altogether.
Mrs. Ellen, a nice lady, wife of our quartermaster, is teaching the two smaller boys regularly and speaks very encouragingly of her scholars. Lucy schools the larger boy with a young soldier who is a good deal older than Birch, but not so far advanced. . . .
I hope you will get through the raw weather of spring without serious illness. — Love to all.
Affectionately, your son,
R.
Mrs. Sophia Hayes.
26th. Reached Columbus at 10 A. M. Took the Central Ohio. Never passed through the country before. Pleased with Newark and Zanesville. Country rough east.
Fort Marcy, Va., Saturday, March 26th, 1864.
I was suddenly awakened at 5 o’clock this morning by Capt. McKeel of Company A, who rushed frantically into my quarters with the intelligence that the regiment had received “marching orders,” and was immediately to join the Army of the Potomac. McKeel appeared to be in great glee; declared that he had long been “spoiling for a fight”; that now the grand object of his military existence was to be attained, and that it would never be recorded of him that he had fought three years for his country without seeing an enemy or firing a gun. Much more of a similar heroic strain was indulged in by the valiant Jim in the exuberance of his spirits which I do not recall, owing probably to the fact that I did not myself receive the news as enthusiastically as was, perhaps, becoming in an officer so far away from the front. Indeed I may frankly say that just at that moment no order could have been more unexpected or undesirable to myself, for, forgetful of the proverbial mutability of human affairs, and particularly of military affairs, I had just completed for the officers of my company a residence within the fort, where I had fondly hoped to spend the remainder of my military life in comfort and security. The house itself was a model of architectural beauty considering the purposes for which it was erected, The main building, intended for the company commander, stood facing the company quarters just across the covered way leading up from the sally-porte. On either hand, adjoining and at right angles with this, the ends extending four or five feet to the front, stood the buildings designed for the Lieutenants, while connecting these ends and spanning the front of the Captain’s quarters, was a delightful little veranda, from which the doors to the three buildings opened to the right, left and centre. Thus constructed, the cottage was painted a light drab color, with dark cornices and trimmings, while the white window frames and veranda posts and railings, and three tiny red chimneys surmounting the black, steep roofs, improved the general effect, and rendered the whole structure one of the prettiest little edifices for officers’ quarters that it has been my good fortune to see. The interior, too, was no less neat and appropriate. Each apartment, separate and distinct from the others, was divided into two rooms, the floors of which were laid with narrow matched pine highly polished, and the walls and ceilings were done in the best style of hard finish plaster. In short the officers’ quarters of Fort Marcy were universally acknowledged to be the most attractive of anything of the kind in the “Defenses of Washington.”
It will, therefore, hardly be wondered at, that the order to march was welcomed by the Commander of Company H., Fourth N. Y. Heavy Artillery, about as joyfully as a mortar shell is received in a comfortable “Gopher-hole,” and that he looked upon the movement as an arbitrary exercise of a little brief authority on the part of the Government, and an unwarranted invasion of personal and proprietary rights. Receiving the intelligence, however, with a dont-care-a-darn-itive composure, I ventured to express my doubt of the veracity of the gallant McKeel, as if the news were too good to be true, and in fact I had strong grounds for hoping that I might be the victim of an innocent joke, inasmuch as Jim, being “Officer of the Day,” and so supposed to be up and awake all night, might reasonably be suspected of being on a reconnaisance for refreshments at that early hour, particularly as he knew the fact that a dozen of the “critter” was at that moment concealed beneath my bed, intended to do duty at a “house warming” appointed for the ensuing evening, in accordance with the ancient and time honored custom in all well regulated military organizations. But, alas, the fatal order, duly recorded in the Post-Order Book, soon exploded this theory and put to flight the last remaining hope, and casting one long, lingering look upon a pillow and a pair of snowy sheets just received from home, I arose and made a hasty but melancholy toilet. McKeel in the meantime entertained me with the enchanting strains of “Who would not be a Soldier,” and other inspiring and patriotic airs, until I “spiked his piece” with one of the bottles referred to, and with which I begged him to celebrate the auspicious occasion, and placing the other eleven bottles in line upon the window sill, I made my first “charge upon the enemy” by deliberately knocking off their heads and pitching their lifeless remains over the parapet, a proceeding, by the way, which Jim characterized as “a reckless waste of the blessings of Providence.”
Summoning Sergeant Theben, I directed that the company pack up and send off all superfluous baggage and effects, and be ready to march at daylight the next morning, and having packed my own knapsack, I sauntered over to Capt. McKeel’s quarters where most of the officers of the post were already assembled. Here there seemed to be a great diversity of opinion as to the true intent and meaning of the movement, each officer having his individual theory, but all expressing a decided apprehension that it meant Infantry instead of Artillery field service. A deputation to Headquarters at Fort Ethan Allen gained but little information, except that it was rumored there that we were to report to the Chief of Artillery of The Army of the Potomac; that Col. Tidball, our Colonel, was to take command of the Artillery Brigade of the Second Corps, and that the regiment was to have a Siege Train. This, though very unsatisfactory, was at least plausible, and with hopes for the best we spent the day in writing letters, packing up, sending off the sick to Washington, issuing rations and shelter tents and generally preparing to move.
Saturday, March 26. —The storm continued with great violence. Patrol brought in seven men. Men had to remain in their tents.
The Family Together Again.
March 26. Broke camp and went over to Portsmouth, opposite Norfolk. Regiment arrived in the afternoon, bringing some 250 recruits. We are once more together and the regiment now numbers about 900 men. Towards night we were ordered out to Getty’s Station, about four miles west of Portsmouth.
Saturday, 26th—The friends of the boys in our company gave a dinner for us today at Mr. Ray’s, and father took me over. It was a cold, cloudy day and the roads were muddy, but all the friends came out and gave the boys a warm greeting—and a fine dinner we had. We all enjoyed ourselves and are thankful to those who got up this dinner for the returned soldiers. It would be fine soldiering if one could have such dinners in the army. May this war soon come to a close that all may enjoy home, and help where we are needed.
March 26—We were visited to-day by our Governor, Zeb Vance, who made us a speech of two and a half hour’s duration. With him on the platform was General Lee, General Ewell and several others.
March 26, Saturday. I went early this A.M. to the President on the subject of procuring a transfer of seamen from the Army to the Navy. After reading the papers he said he would take the matter in hand, and before I left the room he rang for his man Edward and told him to go for the Secretary of War, but, stopping him before he got to the door, directed him to call the Secretary of State first. In this whole matter of procuring seamen for the Navy there has been a sorry display of the prejudices of some of the military authorities. Halleck appears to dislike the Navy more than he loves his country.
Olcott, the detective, is here. Has been called to W. by the War Department. He, like those of his employment, is full of mystery, discussed fraud, overwhelming villainy, etc.; but much of it is mere suspicion, or matter susceptible of explanation. Not but that there is great rascality, —sufficient without exaggerating or aggravating it. I did not care to see him and cautioned Fox not to let his judgment be biased by O. The whole of these harsh proceedings are repugnant to my feelings.
Had a conversation with Admiral Dahlgren concerning operations at Charleston, ironclads, army matters, etc. Gillmore has high qualities as an engineer, but very little as a general in command. Lacks administrative ability, powers of organization, and has not that talent which relies on itself and keeps its own counsel. From what D. says, I think Gillmore must have acquiesced at least in the newspaper assaults on D. and the Navy, which if so, is greatly to his discredit. Dahlgren would never have assented to or permitted such assaults on Gillmore.
March 26.—President Lincoln issued a proclamation specifying the persons to whom the benefits of the Amnesty Proclamation of December last were intended to apply. He also authorized every commissioned officer in the United States service, either naval or military, to administer the oath of allegiance, and imposed rules for their government, in the premises.— (Doc. 113.)
—General Rosecrans, from his headquarters at St. Louis, Mo., issued the following special orders: “The attention of the General Commanding has been called to various articles of an incendiary, disloyal, and traitorous character, in a newspaper entitled the Metropolitan Record, without ecclesiastical sanction, called a ‘Catholic family newspaper,’ published in New-York March twenty-sixth, 1864. The articles on ‘Conscription,’ the ‘Raid upon Richmond,’ ‘Clouds in the West,’ and the ‘Address of the Legislature of Virginia,’ contain enough to satisfy the General Commanding that the reasonable freedom, nor even license, of the press, suffice for the traitorous utterances of those articles. They are a libel on the Catholics, who as a body are loyal and national; no man having a drop of Catholic charity or patriotism in his heart could have written them, expressing, as they do, hatred for the nation’s efforts to resist its own dissolution, and friendship for those who are trying to destroy the great free government under which so many have found an asylum from oppression in other lands.
“The Provost-Marshal General will cause to be seized all numbers of the Metropolitan Record containing those articles; and venders of them, if found guilty of having sold or distributed them, knowing their traitorous contents, will be punished.
“To protect the innocent from imposition, the circulation of this paper is prohibited in this department until further orders.”
—An official announcement from Washington was made, that Illinois was twelve thousand four hundred and thirty-six “ahead of all quotas under the calls of President Lincoln for more troops.”
