Revere House, Cumberland, Maryland, Monday, January 2, 1865. — A fine day. Rode to camp, out one mile north of railroad, east of town. Men all busy getting up huts. Scenery, mountains, etc., around the “Mountain City” very pretty.
Eagle adopted as our badge. Red Eagle for my division. Army of West Virginia in three divisions; General Duval, the First; Kelley, Second; Stephenson, Third. I have First Brigade, First Division.
2d.—This bitter cold morning, when we entered the office, we found that our good “Major” had provided us a New Year’s treat of hot coffee. Of course we all enjoyed it highly, and were very grateful to him; and when I returned home, the first thing that met my eye was a box sent from the express office. We opened it, and found it a Christmas box, filled with nice and substantial things from a friend now staying in Buckingham County, for whom I once had an opportunity of doing some trifling kindness. The Lord is certainly taking care of us through His people. The refugees in some of the villages are much worse off than we are. We hear amusing stories of a friend in an inland place, where nothing can possibly be bought, hiring a skillet from a servant for one dollar per month, and other cooking utensils, which are absolutely necessary, at the same rate; another in the same village, whose health seems to require that she should drink something hot at night, has been obliged to resort to hot water, as she has neither tea, coffee, sugar, nor milk. These ladies belong to wealthy Virginia families. Many persons have no meat on their tables for months at a time; and they are the real patriots, who submit patiently, and without murmuring, to any privation, provided the country is doing well. The flesh-pots of Egypt have no charms for them; they look forward hopefully to the time when their country shall be disenthralled, never caring for the trials of the past or the present, provided they can hope for the future.
2nd. Monday. Commenced building fireplace. Morrison worked for me. Very busy day. Tired out at night.
Monday, 2d—The weather is quite cool. I was detailed this morning to work on the fortifications. We are building the platforms, upon which will be mounted the large cannon, just outside of the forts and rifle pits. These are elevated from five to ten feet above the common level of the ground and then floored so that in wet weather the gunners will not have to be in the mud. A few nice residences have to be pulled down to make room for the works, but nothing like that we had to do at Vicksburg.
Sunday, January 1st, 1865.—Snowed a few inches in depth during the night—clear and cool morning. The new year begins with the new rumor that Gen. Hood has turned upon Gen. Thomas and beaten him. This is believed by many. Hood’s army was not destroyed, and he retreated from before Nashville with some 20,000 men. Doubtless he lost many cannon; but the Federal accounts of his disaster were probably much exaggerated.
The cabinet still remains.
The President is considered really a man of ability, and eminently qualified to preside over the Confederate States, if independence were attained and we had peace. But he is probably not equal to the role he is now called upon to play. He has not the broad intellect requisite for the gigantic measures needed in such a crisis, nor the health and physique for the labors devolving on him. Besides he is too much of a politician still to discard his old prejudices, and persists in keeping aloof from him, and from commanding positions, all the great statesmen and patriots who contributed most in the work of preparing the minds of the people for resistance to Northern domination. And the consequence is that many of these influential men are laboring to break down his administration, or else preparing the people for a return to the old Union. The disaffection is intense and wide-spread among the politicians of 1860, and consternation and despair are expanding among the people. Nearly all desire to see Gen. Lee at the head of affairs; and the President is resolved to yield the position to no man during his term of service. Nor would Gen. Lee take it.
The proposition to organize an army of negroes gains friends; because the owners of the slaves are no longer willing to fight themselves, at least they are not as “eager for the fray” as they were in 1861; and the armies must be replenished, or else the slaves will certainly be lost.
Thus we begin the new year—Heaven only knows how we shall end it! I trust we may be in a better condition then. Of one thing I am certain, the People are capable of achieving independence, if they only had capable men in all departments of the government.
The President was at St. Paul’s to-day, with a knit woolen cap on his head. Dr. Minnegerode preached a sermon against the croakers. His son has been appointed a midshipman by the President.
Camp Seventeenth Michigan Infantry,
January 1st, 1865.
The storm is past; the sun shines out, bright and cheerful, giving golden promise of the coming years. My darling’s birthday, too. I had fondly hoped it might be my lot to be with her on that day. We have received no mail the last three days. A new arrangement has been made at the distributing office, in Washington, the mail being now distributed by brigades.
The Seventeenth could not be found in this great army, as we are not brigaded. A special dispatch was sent out instructing the mail agent to send our mail to First Division, Ninth Corps.
General Wilcox is in temporary command of the corps. The Rebels improve every opportunity to desert. All agree as to the scarcity of supplies and the hopelessness of their cause.
Camp of the 5th Mass. Cav’y
Point Lookout, Md., January 1, 1865
I am back in camp and working out my salvation after a fashion. I have almost nothing to do and so enjoy a good deal of leisure. This would make my life unbearable had I not systematically gone to work to occupy myself. When I returned I brought back with me a number of books and these make my evenings something to look forward to. That I may be sure and enjoy them, I never open my books in the day time, but, until my lamps are lighted I busy myself with some sort of work. I write all my letters, transact business, study tactics, and in the afternoon drill the regiment; but when dusk comes, then comes my pleasure. At about five o’clock I have a bright fire blazing in my quarters, my lamps are lighted, and then I make myself a cigarette and feeling that I have earned my evening, settle down to my books. I never go out, and people rarely drop in on me, so that a long evening is given me from five to eleven o’clock. These I enjoy intensely. . . .
Nashville, Sunday, Jan. 1, 1865. New Year’s morning dawned bitter cold. I suffered terribly on guard last night. A heavy impenetrable mist, such as I have nowhere seen except in Nashville, enveloped the earth till 9 A. M. freezing in icy down upon everything. When I came off post I looked more like some ghostly spectre in white than a soldier in blue. Rations very short in camp, but we had a big New Year’s dinner of soft bread and butter, pies and Spring Green cake of Miss Spencer’s make. This evening I received a letter from my faithful brother John. He wrote in the midst of the festivities of a Christmas visit.
January 1, 1865 — This is Happy New Year. A cold northwest wind is sweeping through camp in a regular hurricane style, with all the fierceness and chilliness of a midwinter tempest.
To commence the new year with an inauspicious outlook we drew but half rations to-day. All of us in our tent went to bed at noon to keep from freezing; at sunset we got up and stood out in ranks and shiveringly answered evening roll-call, then went back to bed to spend the remainder of this Happy New Year in trying to have pleasant dreams of some warm, steaming, delicious New Year dinner somewhere far, far away. On Christmas Day a hungry Alabamian ate five pounds of raw bacon and six pounds of bread in one sitting, at the commissary department of this prison. The poor fellow was a large man and no doubt had been hungry a long time, but the enormous bulk that he stowed away was too much for his unused digestive apparatus, and it partially failed to respond to the abrupt overfeeding process, which sent the man to the hospital, where he eventually died from the effects of his little Christmas dinner.
January 1st. Camp at Halltown, where we are going through life doing the duty of a soldier, in winter quarters. Many new recruits are being added to our company, and the regiment. The sick and wounded who have recovered are also coming back. All returning members and recruits are greeted as fresh fish. Our camp being on high ground, none can enter without being seen. At the call of “Fresh fish,” the boys turn out and welcome all who come. Many questions are asked about home, as most of the recruits have friends in the regiment. Some have relations. With the returning members and the recruits gives us more men for duty, which helps to make duty more easy for the men, while the sergeants and corporals must be on picket duty every other night. Religious service is conducted every Sunday, and evenings, by our Chaplain. The chapel is also used for a reading room. Tables, pen, ink, and paper for the boys who wish to use it for writing letters. We are the only regiment in this vicinity. Others are at Harper’s Ferry and Charlestown.
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