Tuesday, April 26. — We remained in camp all day and sent in requisitions for ordnance, etc. Had an inspection of all our companies, and a general overhauling of all our baggage, etc., preparatory for a campaign. Gilmore, our sutler, came out to see us. Weather pleasant. General Stevenson was the only general officer present in the corps. I don’t like the way things are conducted in the corps. Every one has to move on his own hook, and things seem very loosely conducted. The 24th Massachusetts and 10th Connecticut had been sent to Fort Monroe when we arrived here. Charley Griswold showed me a letter addressed to me in his valise, to be opened in case anything happened to him.
Saturday, April 26, 2014
April 26, 1864. — All things point to early action. [The] Thirty-sixth Ohio came up and entered our camp yesterday morning; now below us. The enlisted men gave General Crook a seven-hundred-dollar sword on our parade this morning.
Avery, a major, on his way to Annapolis with the Sixtieth. Glad he is getting his deserts; sorry to lose him. I hope the Thirty-sixth is to be with us. General Durfie and others dined with me today. All talked action.
April 26 — We had artillery target shooting to-day; it was the first time we ever had anything of the kind since the war.
Tuesday, 26th—We stopped at Centralia this morning for breakfast, and arrived at Cairo about 5 o’clock in the evening. Our regiment received new tents, and marching up the Ohio, we went with our non-veteran comrades into camp just above Cairo. There are about twenty thousand troops in camp at this place, and a large expedition is being fitted out here, to start in a few days, but there is no certainty as to where it is going.[1] Most of the Seventeenth Army Corps is camped here awaiting orders. It is being reorganized and fitted out with Springfield rifles and cartridge boxes.
[1] The expedition was fitted out for the campaign against Atlanta, under the command of General Sherman.—A. G. D.
A Trip through the Chesapeake and Albemarle Canal.
April 26. The surrender of Plymouth, N. C, and death of Flusser caused consternation at Roanoke island, lest the dreaded Albemarle should make them a visit. On the 22d we were ordered to the succor of that island. Embarking on board a large double-ender boat, we left Portsmouth in the afternoon and proceeded up the river, going past the Gosport navy yard, where could be seen the burned and sunken hulks of the U. S. vessels which were destroyed at the surrender of Norfolk and the navy yard at the beginning of the war. We kept on up the river till towards night, when we entered the canal. The boat was a little too wide for the canal and our progress was slow.
About midnight we came to a station, having made but a few miles of our journey. There we found our Brooklyn friends who were doing picket duty. They were right glad to see us and kept us busy answering questions about their old home, which they were beginning to despair of ever seeing again. After an hour’s stop we resumed our journey. We had not gone far when the port wheel fouled with a stump, so that we could neither go ahead nor back off. This caused a delay of about two hours, as cutting out floats by the light of a lantern is a slow job. A mile or so further on a similar accident happened. This time they went to work cutting out the stump which was of considerable size, and took with a large amount of swearing, until after daylight to get clear. The port wheel had now acquired a provoking habit of foaling with all the stumps-and snags along the bank, and not until late in the afternoon of the 23d did we come out to a lake, sound, bay, or at any rate a large sheet of water, which we crossed, and just before night again entered the canal.
We now enter the eastern edge of the great dismal swamp. I have sometime read a legend of the phantom or witch of the lake of the dismal swamp, who all night long, by the light of the firefly lamp, would paddle her light canoe. On each side of the canal is a cypress swamp, and as the officers were about retiring for the night in the house on deck, the colonel charged the boys to keep a sharp lookout for guerrillas and bushwhackers who might be lurking there. About midnight all was still, not a sound was heard save the dull, heavy wheezing of the engines. Stripped of their bark, the dead trunks of the cypress trees looked in the dim light of the sweet German silver-plated moon, weird and ghostlike. Now it required no great stretch of the imagination to see almost anything in this swamp, and it began to be whispered around that bushwhackers could be seen behind the trees. Presently the sharp crack of a rifle rang out on the still night air, followed by a general fusillade and a cry that the woods are full of them. The officers came rushing out of the house and the colonel strained his eyes peering into the swamp, but seeing nothing and hearing no return fire, he naturally concluded that the boys were drawing on their imaginations, and gave the order to cease firing. But in such a racket it was difficult to hear orders, especially if they didn’t care to, and before he got them stopped, he was giving his orders in very emphatic language. It was rare sport to see the firing go on and to hear the colonel trying to stop it.
About morning we entered the North river, coming out into Currituck sound and sailing around the head of the island, landed at old Fort Huger. The garrison consisted of only the 99th New York, who felt a little nervous about being caught here alone in case the Albemarle should make them a visit. On landing we learned the scare was all over. The ram left Plymouth, intending to comc here, but on getting out into the sound the old ferryboats which had been lying in wait went for her and came well nigh sinking her; at any rate they disabled her so much she put back to Plymouth. Finding we were not needed here, after a few hours’ rest we re-embarked and started back.
The next day as we came out into the wide sheet of water, a cry was raised: “Sail ho! Sail ho!” “Where away?” “Five points off the port bow.” And sure enough, a little to the left and nearly across this lake, sound or whatever it is, lay a small steamer, which proved to be the little mail-boat Gazelle, which lay there stranded. We hauled up and inquired if they wished any assistance. They replied they should be all right as soon as the sand washed from under them, but in the meantime would like a guard aboard. About a dozen men from Company A were put aboard and we went on, arriving back to camp late last evening.
Fort Hall, Whitesburg, Ala., Tuesday, April 26. Busied myself this morning to prepare, and after breakfast we started on horseback. The day was delightful, and our road lay through one of the most enchanting valleys I ever travelled through, skirted on each side by a low ridge of the Cumberland Mountains which, dressed in the richest verdure of spring, with the evergreens here and there raising their dark heads among the new green leaves in beautiful contrast. The valley was about five miles wide, all of which had been under long cultivation. Stumps all out, large fields were plowed in the rude Southern style, and large droves of negroes and mules at work planting cotton, a pleasing insight to the domestic life of the South; but the driver’s lash and hound were not there. The same large landed estates were apparent here as elsewhere, houses infrequent. I could but picture in my mind’s eye the industrious farmer of the North in his neat white house and 160 acres of land scattered over it with school-houses on every corner. Liberal institutions and improved cultivation would make this am earthly paradise.
Reached Whitesburg by 12 M. after one of the pleasantest rides I ever enjoyed. Found the boys all well and in good spirits, very neatly quartered in Fort Hall with one company of infantry with them.
After supper Evie and I went fishing in Tennessee River, dropped our lines and watched the rebels on the opposite side of the river on picket. Breastworks are to be seen but apparently vacant.
April 26, Tuesday. Sent a letter to Naval Committee in favor of an iron navy yard, transmitting former communications. Action is required and should have been taken by Congress long since.
Neither Chase nor Blair were at the Cabinet to-day, nor was Stanton. The course of these men is reprehensible, and yet the President, I am sorry to say, does not reprove but rather encourages it by bringing forward no important measure connected with either. As regards Chase, it is evident he presumes on his position and the condition of the finances to press a point, hoping it may favor his aspirations.
Stanton has a cabinet and is a power in his own Department. He deceives the President and Seward, makes confidants of certain leading men, and is content to have matters move on without being compelled to show his exact position. He is not on good terms with Blair, nor is Chase, which is partly attributable to that want of concert which frequent assemblages and mutual counselling on public measures would secure. At such a time the country should have the combined wisdom of all.
Rear-Admiral Porter has sent me a long, confidential letter in relation to affairs on Red River and the fights that have taken place at Mansfield, Pleasant Hill, etc. The whole affair is unfortunate. Great sacrifice of life and property has been made in consequence of an incompetent general in command. It is plain from Admiral Porter’s account that Banks is no general, has no military capacity, is wholly unfit for the position assigned him. He has never exhibited military capacity, and I regret the President should adhere to him. It is to be attributed in a great degree to Seward, who caused Butler to be superseded by Banks, and naturally desires he should not prove a failure, and therefore hopes and strives against facts. Banks has much of the demagogue, is superficially smart, has volubility and a smack of party management, which is often successful. The President thinks he has Presidential pretensions and friends to back him, but it is a great mistake. Banks is not only no general, but he is not much of a statesman. He is something of a politician, and a party man of his own stamp, and for his own advancement, but is not true and reliable.
There is an attempt to convert this reverse into a victory, but the truth will disclose itself. The President should, if Porter’s statements are reliable, dismiss Banks, or deprive him of military command.
I asked Halleck, who called on me to-day, what the army opinion was of the recent conflicts on Red River. He said we undoubtedly had the worst of it, and that Banks had no military talent or education. While I do not place a high estimate on Halleck himself, his expressed opinion of Banks corresponds with my own. Whether he will recommend the withdrawal of Banks from the army remains to be seen.
April 26.—General Steele evacuated Camden, Arkansas, and commenced his march to Little Rock, on account of a want of supplies.—(Doc. 130.)
by John Beauchamp Jones
APRIL 26TH.—Another truly fine spring day.
The ominous silence on the Rapidan and Rappahannock continues still. The two armies seem to be measuring each other’s strength before the awful conflict begins.
It is said the enemy are landing large bodies of troops at Yorktown.
Major-Gen. Ransom has been assigned to the command of this department; and Gen. Winder’s expectations of promotion are blasted. Will he resign? I think not.
The enemy’s accounts of the battle on the Red River do not agree with the reports we have.
Neither do the Federal accounts of the storming of FortPillow agree with ours.
April 26th. Marching orders received. Ordered to report at Martinsburg. Now under General Sigel, who has been put in command of all the forces in the Shenandoah Valley, for an advance up the valley.
