April 7. — Splendid day. Sick abed most of the day. Threatened with a fever. 14th Massachusetts Battery arrived to-day. Received letter from Ford in regard to deserters. Jonathan Soule, who escaped at Brunswick, is among the number caught by Ford.
Monday, April 7, 2014
Colonel Lyon’s Letters.
Edgefield, April 7, 1864.—Everything is pleasant at Morrison’s and I am more comfortable than I would be if I ran a mess. We were on picket duty yesterday. I have the whole regiment at work today cleaning the camp.
7th. Thursday. Letters from home yesterday. Read the “Life of Capt. Hurley Vicars” in the morning. Tom and Thede went to town to see Dan. P. M. went out to see companies drill. Would like to drill right well. Dreamed of Fannie last night.
Thursday, 7th—It rained all day, and I remained at home. As the boys are all down with the measles, I am helping father with the farm work between showers.
Huntsville, Thursday, April 7. A beautiful spring day, grass growing, birds caroling. All nature seems to be putting forth new life. The soldiers with the rest took up the spirit, and the camp was lively with outdoor spirits all day. Horses turned out to picket, but little grass for them, yet I was detailed to watch them in the afternoon, consequently did not drill. Heard from friend Evie, my mate, carried up by one of the boys. He is doing well and enjoying himself. I would like to go out there to him. I don’t like to live alone very well. Large mail, but none for me this time.
April 7—This is a day of fasting and prayer, set apart by President Davis.
April 7, Thursday. Adjourned the Wilkes court martial to-day until Monday, the 18th inst. The testimony is all in, and the case will go to judgment as soon as the arguments are delivered. Defense wanted eight to ten days, and the members of the Court desired to go home for a few days. Every effort has been made to evade the issues in this case and to get up false ones. All of Wilkes’s long letters have been introduced, etc., etc.
April 7.—The rebels made a dash within the National picket-lines at Port Hudson, La., and a brisk skirmish ensued, without important results to either side. A detachment of the One Hundred and Eighteenth Illinois mounted infantry, and a section of Barnes’s battery, Twenty-first New-York, with one gun, had been out mending the line of telegraph to Baton Rouge, and on their return were attacked by a superior force of rebel cavalry and driven in. Simultaneously an attack was made on the pickets by an equally large force, and the detachment on the telegraph road was cut off and flanked. The cavalry came in by wood roads, but the piece of artillery was spiked and left, and afterward carried off by the enemy. In the several skirmishes the Nationals lost one killed, four wounded, and six prisoners. They took two prisoners, one of them an officer. General Ullman’s division marched several miles outside, but on the approach of the infantry the rebels left without hazarding a tight. The rebel force was the Wirt Adams’s cavalry from up the river, numbering nearly a thousand. They were well mounted and equipped.— The rebel schooner Spunky was captured by the National schooner Beauregard, off Cape Canaveral.
by John Beauchamp Jones
APRIL 7TH —A bright spring day.
We look for startling news from the Rappahannock in a few days. Longstreet will be there.
Gen. Lee writes that the fortifications around Richmond ought to be pushed to completion: 2000 negroes are still at work on them.
April 7th, 1864.—Today I have no shoes to put on. All my life I have never wanted to go bare-footed, as most Southern children do. The very touch of my naked foot to the bare ground made be shiver. Lulu my Mammy, scolds me about this—even yet she claims the privilege of taking me to task when she thinks I need it.
“Look here, chile,” she says, “don’t you know you is made outen the dus’ er de earth? Don’t you understand dat when you is dead you is gwine back ter dat dus’?”
“Yes, Lulu,” I answer meekly.
“Well, den, what is you so foolish fur? Better folks dan you is gone bare-footed.”
I listen to all she has to say but a thought has come to me and I have no time to argue the point. Until the shoes for the army are finished, Mr. McDearnmid will not have time to make any shoes for any one else, this is right, for our dear soldiers must come first in everything, but I will stop writing now and get to work.
