Friday, November 11 — This morning the news is that Lincoln is reelected. Hope it is true. It is probable that we shall be sent to the stockade, and the jail used as a hospital. Wrote to Mrs. Greene and Mrs. Garesché. Day warm and pleasant. Grew cooler in the evening.
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
Friday, 11th—All is quiet in camp. We have company drill twice a day now for the purpose of drilling our conscripts. We received orders that the last mail would leave for the North tomorrow morning and that all who wanted to write farewell letters home would have to attend to it before that time. The rebel cavalry, about three thousand strong, made a raid on our forces at Atlanta, but were repulsed with heavy loss, for what little they gained.
Friday, November 11.— Clear and cold. Skirmishing all P. M. on our right. What does it mean? We don’t want to fight any more battles this fall, but if we do we shall probably whip them.
November 11th, 1864.
I have gratified a long-cherished wish today—that of visiting the outer fortifications in our front. I wish some of my Northern friends, who are disposed to growl because the army does not “move forward,” had been with me. The questions they ask would have answered themselves, for, in looking at our works, they would have seen a counterpart of the Rebels’. First, a continuous chain of rifle pits, or breastworks, running from Appomattox River, on our right, to our extreme left, where it turns a half circle back, in our rear, toward City Point. These works are built of pine logs laid up as high as a man’s head, and firmly joined together. On the side facing the enemy a ditch is cut, about eight feet from the logs, the dirt being thrown up against them and firmly packed, forming a protection against solid shot, and shell unless they burst directly overhead. In front of these works, from a quarter to a half mile, the timber is “slashed,” rendering it next to impossible for men to make their way through it, even if not opposed. Much of the way the breastworks are protected by abbattis. A ditch is dug some three feet deep, from four to six rods in front of the line of breastworks, then the tops of trees are inserted in the ditch closely packed together, every limb sharpened and projecting toward the enemy, and the dirt is then thrown back and packed, to hold them firmly in place. But this is the weakest point of the line of defense.
All along this extended line, at every angle, forts are built, mounting twelve to thirty guns. These forts are within musket range of each other, so situated as to sweep the intervening space with grape and canister.
This is a very faint and imperfect description, but is, I think, enough to show that mortal man cannot carry these works, if earnestly defended. The Rebel works are quite as strong as ours.
I had several fine views of them through a field glass, which annihilated distance, so far as vision is concerned. Half way between the two lines are the pickets, but a few rods apart.
Chapin’s Farm, Va.,
November 11, 1864.
Dear Sister L.:—
This afternoon I rode down to see Lieutenant Ellinwood, Nineteenth Wisconsin, a cousin of Captain Dickey’s. He was out in charge of the picket line, so I galloped out there, and as I pulled up at a squad by the roadside a man just a little way ahead sung out, “Take that horse back.” The lieutenant got up from beside a stump and I asked him if that was an outpost of his. “That is a Johnny,” said he, “here is my line.” I sent that horse back. The reb did not shoot, but I did not want to give him too big a temptation. He was so near I could hit him with a stone, but he seemed very peaceably disposed.
I am not yet able to say that Alf Ayres is second lieutenant of the Eighth, but I hope to be able to do so in my next. I think all that is necessary is for him to come over and see our colonel in order to be recommended, which amounts to success.
I am running the quartermaster’s department of the Eighth very much to my satisfaction and so far as I know to that of the others.
My health continues so-so, able to be around all the time.
November 11th.—Clear and pleasant. All quiet. No doubt, from the indications, Lincoln has been re-elected.
Now preparations must be made for the further “conflict of opposing forces.” All our physical power must be exerted, else all is lost.
Mr. Sparrow, Louisiana, chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs, introduced a measure, yesterday, in the Senate, which, if consummated, might put all our able-bodied men in the field. It would equalize prices of the necessaries of life, and produce a panic among the speculators. I append it. But, probably, the press will have to be suppressed, “as a war measure,” too, to pass it:
“A bill to extend the assessment of prices for the army to all citizens of the Confederate States:
“Whereas, the depreciation of our currency is, in a great measure, produced by the extortion of those who sell the necessaries of life; and whereas, such depreciation is ruinous to our Confederacy and to the means of prosecuting the war; therefore
“The Congress of the Confederate States of America do enact, as a necessary war measure, That the prices assessed for the army by the commissioners of assessment shall be the prices established for all citizens of the Confederate States; and that any person who shall charge any price beyond such assessment shall be deemed guilty of a criminal offense, and be subject to a fine not exceeding five thousand dollars and to imprisonment not exceeding one year.”
We are now tending rapidly, under fearful exigencies, to the absolutism which, in a republic, alone can summon the full forces into the field. Power must be concentrated, and wielded with promptitude and precision, else we shall fail to achieve our independence. All obstructions in the way of necessary war measures must be speedily removed, or the finances, and the war itself, will speedily come to an ignominious end.
The Secretary recommends, and the President orders, that Gen. Bragg be assigned to the command of North Carolina. The President yields; Bragg is “given up.”
The Richmond Enquirer is out, to-day, in an article advocating the employment of 250,000 negroes in our army.
Chattanooga, Friday, Nov. 11. Spent the night in broken slumbers stowed away in the smallest imaginable space under a caisson, very cold. Daylight found us near Dalton. Stopped an hour to await trains. Several more families of refugees stowed their baggage away under our carriages. Boys procured whiskey on Simpson’s order, several becoming gloriously tight. 11 A. M. ran into another train, throwing one car off the tracks and frightening several women. Lots of the boys jumped off, slightly injured, but not seriously. The road along here has evidences of Hood’s depredations, for miles bent rails, etc.
2 P. M. we entered the “Hawk’s Nest”, Chattanooga, busy as ever. Mule teams and refugees so thick we could hardly move. Here we stopped, having no orders to go farther. Simpson telegraphed to Major Stolbrand. Had we the orders we would have gone to Nashville 5 P. M. but as it was we must lay over. Met four recruits at Ringgold, took them along. Two of them brothers to our 1st Sergeant and Quartermaster, four of them together now.
11th. Friday. On picket in P. M. Letter from home. Rebs around.
