Adams Family Civil War letters; US Minister to the UK and his sons.

Henry Adams to Charles Francis Adams, Jr.

[London,] June 18, 1863

Calm still prevails, praise be to God! But next week I expect a change. A victory would do us good here in preparation for the struggle which is coming, but then it has so happened that this season of the year has been twice remarkable for defeats and disasters. So that I rather expect them again. Mr. Lawley has written from Richmond a poetical account of the Chancellorsville affair, from which I gather several results, which he perhaps does not intend to dwell upon.

1. Lee at that battle had n’t more than fifty thousand men.

2. He gave Jackson almost all these, probably three-fifths, to make his flank attack.

3. The question of supplies was of such enormous consequence to Lee that he was compelled to give up a whole division (Longstreet’s) to hog-catching at Suffolk, when he himself had not men enough to man the heights at Fredericksburg.

4. By Lawley’s admission, his loss was ten thousand, and that is, as I take it, at least one-fifth of his army, including his best general.

From all which I infer that Mr. Hooker had a narrower escape from becoming the greatest man living than even General McClellan. If he had done anything on God’s earth except retreat; if in fact he had done anything at all, instead of folding his hands after the first crossing the river, he must have been successful. There never were such chances and so many of them for a lucky man to play for, but the audacious gentleman wanted precisely what we all thought he had too much of, viz. audacity. And on the whole, much as I should be pleased with victory, it would have been dearly bought by inflicting us with Joseph for our model hero.

Meanwhile I hope that Lee’s new movement will at least procure you relief from your old camp. Speculations are weak, but we do generally imagine here that Lee is compelled now by the same necessity that forced him to part with Longstreet’s division at Fredericksburg. He must supply his army and is going to threaten Cincinnati and Ohio while he leaves you to break your teeth on the fortifications at Richmond. I guess that. But at any rate, all this looks jerky and spasmodic on his part, and my second guess is that friend Jefferson D[avis] finds that the Confederacy has got into damnably shallow water.

The world here drags on after its usual style, a miserable dangling, shuffling sort of existence that Englishmen call progress. Yesterday we had a pleasant dinner which the feminines will no doubt describe to you, at which Charles Dickens, John Forster, of “Goldsmith” and “The Statesmen,” Louis Blanc, and other distinguished individuals were present; and a very jolly dinner it was. Apropos, I have at last found an artist who can really paint. I have asked, or rather made interest to get him to take the Chief, but I doubt if he will consent, as he is a Parisian and is only here on a visit. If he does consent, however, I shall assess you and John for your shares of the cost, unless the Chief insists upon taking it upon himself. Frith too will have to introduce the Minister in his picture of the wedding and if his study is good, that might be worth buying.

After two years delay, I have at last become a Club man, having been elected last week. My particular backer seems to have been your old acquaintance Lord Frederick Cavendish, and for the life of me I can’t conceive why. Lord Fwed seems to be a very excellent fellow, but I am no believer in unselfishness in this country. Nobody here has ever yet rushed into my arms and called me brother. Nor do I expect such a proceeding. Whether Frederick Cavendish, therefore, is impressed by the weight of debts of hospitality incurred in America, and is thus paying them off; or whether he feels his conscience touched by the vagaries of his brother Hartington; or whether he desires to show a general and delicate sympathy with our position; or whether Monckton Milnes has exerted an influence upon him; I don’t know and can’t guess. But the fact remains that he has been active in getting me in, and of course I am glad to have a Duke’s son to back me. In other respects it makes little difference to me whether I am in or out of a Club, ex- [rest of letter is lost.]

Charles Francis Adams, Jr., to his father

June 14, 1863 (continuation of
letter started June 8)

We saddled in haste and I was ordered to take my company down at once towards Sulphur Springs, gathering up our discomforted pickets as I went along, until I met the enemy, when I was to engage him and retreat on our reserve as slowly as possible. I must say I thought that this was ramming me in as I had less than fifty men; but off I started bound to do my best, though I must say I felt a little relieved when Major Higginson came up and joined me and I felt not wholly alone. For my only other officer at the time was Pat Jackson, a boy of eighteen and only a few weeks out from home — worse than nothing. Within half a mile we met the company which had been engaged, pretty well used up — both officers gone and a number of men; the rest flushed and hatless from their rapid retreat, but all steady and quiet under the command of Sergeant Jimmy Hart, an old rough and fighting man, and evidently there was lots of fight in them yet. They reported the enemy variously from 1000 to 1800 strong and in pursuit, but somehow they had n’t seen them for the last few miles. They fell in in my rear and we pushed forward. Of course we expected a shindy and, as usual, when expected it did n’t come. Every instant I expected to run onto the enemy’s advanced guard or picket, and ordered my advance the instant they caught sight of a vidette to drop their carbines and dash at him with their sabres; but none came in sight and finally we came out on the hill over the ford and hotel and, behold! the enemy was gone and the coast was clear. So we re-established the line and got back to the reserve in time to find the brigade under arms and out to support us.

On the whole it might have been improved but it was a good thing. It was a repetition of my experience last February at Hartwood Church on men of different stuff from the 16th Pennsylvania. The enemy, came down some 600 strong to capture our picket force at Sulphur Springs. There we had thirty-three men under two officers posted with their nearest support two miles off, and that only ten men, and the reserve ten miles off. The enemy threw some three hundred men, as the negroes told us, across the river and came up to rout and capture our party. Lieutenant Gleason, who commanded, with more spirit than discretion, at once went in for a fight, though he believed there were at least 800 of them. Accordingly the rebs found a wolf where they looked for a hare. For as they came up the hill to the woods where Gleason lay he rammed his thirty men into the head of their column, knocking them clean off their legs and down the hill. So far was excellent and now, with his prisoners and booty, he should have at once arranged for a slow, ugly retreat, and the rebs would not have been anxious to hurry him too much. But no, he was there, he seemed to think, to fight and so presently the rebs came up and at them he went once more, and then of course, it was all up with him and the road was open to the enemy clean back to us. He staggered them again, but they rallied — a sabre cut over the head brought him off his horse, the other officer got separated from his men — they fell into confusion, and after that they retreated, without order but still showing fight. The enemy, astonished at the fierceness of the resistance, followed but a short distance and then fell back across the river. They took one prisoner, a Sergeant who was dismounted, but was captured fighting like a devil with his back to a tree. Gleason escaped through the woods and came in with a handsome sabre cut and otherwise no loss; while, as we the next day discovered, they carried home quite a collection of lovely gashes.

I did not get back into camp until after eight o’clock and it was ten before we got settled and quiet. Next day a force came out to relieve us and we would have gone in had they not come out so late. As it was we waited till next day, resting our horses and ourselves and then on Friday the fifth we marched leisurely to the Brigade camp. We got into camp at one o’clock, expecting a little chance now to rest and refit, but that evening we were ordered to be ready to march at seven o’clock and march we did, though not far. They got us out and in column at nine P.M. and at ten sent us back with orders to be ready at two A.M., and so, having effectually spoilt our night, at two A.M. they had us up and at half past three we were on the march. The whole division marched down to Sulphur Springs and just at noon our regiment was pushed across the river and sent on to Jefferson, for no purpose that I then could or now can see but to pick a fight. We went to Jefferson and looked round but saw no enemy, and presently they sent us on to Hazel River and I was ordered to take my squadron down to the river and “stir up the enemy’s pickets.” I did so, but the enemy’s pickets when they saw me coming put boots and declined to be stirred, so I returned, capturing on my way home a secesh officer, whose horse I spied outside of a house in which, all unconscious of danger, he was getting something to eat. So towards evening we fell back on the road to the Springs.

We got there and crossed just at sunset, dirty, hungry, tired, and with weary and unfed horses. We did hope that here they would put us into camp; but with an hour’s delay for feeding our horses, we were mounted again and marched clean back into camp, nearly twenty miles. It was an awful march and I never saw such drowsiness in a column before. Men went sound asleep in the saddle and their horses carried them off. It was laughable. I repeatedly lost the column before me while asleep and two of my four chiefs of platoons marched rapidly by me on their way to the head of the column, sound asleep and bolt upright. We reached camp at three A.M. of Sunday, having been gone just twenty-four hours, with twenty-two of them in the saddle. For once the next day reveille was omitted by common consent and all hands slept until nine o’clock. We were pretty tired and looked jaded and languid. I certainly felt so, and could not muster the energy to write a letter.

Monday the eighth we set to work to repair damages. Our horses were thin and poor, they needed shoes, our baggage needed overhauling and reduction. We all need new clothes, for we are curiously ragged and dirty and my clothes are waiting for me in Washington, but I cannot get them forward. How astonished you would be to see me in my present “uniform.” My blue trousers are ragged from contact with the saddle and so covered with grease and dust that they would fry well. From frequent washing my flannel shirts are so shrunk about the throat that they utterly refuse to button and, so perforce, “I follow Freedom with my bosom bare.” I wear a loose government blouse, like my men’s, and my waistcoat, once dark blue, is now a dusty brown. I have no gloves and those boots of the photograph, long innocent of blacking, hang together by doubtful threads. These, with hair cropped close to my head, a beard white with dust and such a dirty face, constitute my usual apparel. Read this to Browning and ask him to write a poem on the real horrors of war.

In this condition last Monday we thought to take advantage of a day’s quiet to start afresh, and in this hope we abided even until noon, when orders came for us to immediately prepare to move with all our effects. This was an awful blow to me, for I knew it would cost me my poor dog “Mac.” He had followed me through thick and thin so far, but three days before he was taken curiously ill with a sort of dropsical swelling and now was so bad that he could not follow me. When we moved I got him into an ambulance in which Gleason was carried to Warrenton Junction, but there was no one to take care of him, and I traced him down to Bealeton next day, following one of our officers, and there he disappeared. Poor Mac! I felt badly enough. He was very fond of me and I of him and it made me feel blue to reflect that all his friskings of delight when I came round were over and that he would sleep under my blanket no more. However, in campaigning we risk and lose more than the company of animals, and I could not let this loss weigh on me too heavily.

Our column got in motion at about five o’clock and we marched to Morrisville. What with various delays it was eleven o’clock before we got into camp and then we had had nothing to eat. At last this was forthcoming, such as it was. It was well past twelve before we got down to sleep and I for one was just dozing off —had not lost consciousness — when reveille was somewhere sounded. “That’s too horrid;” I thought, “it must be some other division.” But at once other bugles caught it up in the woods around and, just as they, began the first started off on “The Assembly” and the others chased after it through that and the breakfast call, until the woods rang and the division awoke under the most amazing snarl of simultaneous calls from Reveille to “Boots and Saddle” that ever astonished troopers. But we shook ourselves and saddled our horses, and at two o’clock we were on the road. Heaven only knows where they marched us, but one thing was clear — after five hours hard marching we had only made as many miles and reached Kelly’s Ford. We crossed at once and began to take our share in the fight of Tuesday, 9th.

I have n’t time or paper to describe what we saw of that action, nor would my story be very interesting. We were not very actively engaged or under heavy fire and our loss did not exceed ten or a dozen. In my squadron one man was wounded; but the work was very hard, for we penetrated clean to the enemy’s right and rear at Stevensburg and about noon were recalled to assist General Gregg, and from two A.M. to two P.M. the order to dismount was not once given. The day was clear, hot and intensely dusty; the cannonading lively and the movements, I thought, slow. I am sure a good cavalry officer would have whipped Stuart out of his boots; but Pleasonton is not and never will be that. In addition to the usual sights of a battle I saw but one striking object — the body of a dead rebel by the road-side the attitude of which was wonderful. Tall, slim and athletic, with regular sharply chiseled features, he had fallen flat on his back, with one hand upraised as if striking, and with his long light hair flung back in heavy waves from his forehead. It was curious, no one seems to have passed that body without the same thought of admiration. . . .

Charles Francis Adams, Jr., to his father

Camp near Bealeton, Va.
June 8, 1863

My last to you, I believe, was of Sunday, 24th May, and the next morning early we broke camp and again left Potomac Creek, this time let us hope for the last time. I should have been afraid to stay there much longer. The whole country for miles about that vicinity is full of decaying animal matter and one lives in an atmosphere of putrefaction. I had already begun to feel the malaria myself and I am sure that if the army remains there long the systems of the men will become so poisoned that, as at one time on the Peninsula, a man when wounded will always die. We marched away Monday, glad to go and very happy over the news from Vicksburg, which told us more than has since been confirmed. We got that day two thirds of the way to Bealeton, but went into camp early and passed a quiet evening, listening to the Rhode Island band, and finished our journey next morning, establishing ourselves in a beautiful spot in an open oak wood, where we laid out a regular and remarkably pretty camp and disposed ourselves to be comfortable. There we remained until Saturday evening following, having a comparatively quiet time, breathing fresh air and recruiting ourselves and our horses. At times we were subject to alarms and to keeping saddled, but nothing came of them and so we lay on our backs, reading and sleeping and trying to nurse up our horses. Every spot has its troubles, however, and those of our beautiful oak wood were two — orders and bugle-calls and want of water. We were pestered to death by orders for the regulation of our hours — when we should groom and feed and water and graze and drill and every other act which constitutes camp life —until we came to the conclusion that Colonel Duffle, Commander, might be a good man, but he could not run a Division. As for water we could not and never did find any fit for our horses to drink. Still we were very comfortable here, feeding our horses and laying off under the shade of the oak trees. In the mornings I used to feel like a large stock-farmer as I got onto my horse and rode off to the field in which I had had my disabled horses turned out to graze, and there I would ride round and examine them and see to their progress and then return in time for a drill, which would bore me fearfully, and then lay off and read and sleep beneath the oaks.

Saturday evening they turned us out of this, after keeping us in a state of alarm all day. At first we were under orders for Sunday morning and everything was arranged, our horses unsaddled and we going to bed. Then orders came to mount at once and go out on picket and we hastily made our preparations for a night break of camp and a night march. We got under way at about ten o’clock and towards one had reached a point from which our parties were to be sent out, and here we dismounted and presently lay down and went to sleep.

Sunday morning we settled down to our work. My squadron was in reserve and we drew back into the woods, unsaddled and got our breakfasts and began to feel comfortable in the fresh bright Sunday morning. We were thinking of a nap to make up for the last night, when an order came for us to at once withdraw our pickets and return to camp. So we saddled up and started in. By noon we had gotten in and just as our camp came in sight, a messenger came up with new orders for us to go right back and re-establish our line pickets. We gasped in amazement at the management of affairs, but turned round and marched back. At about two we were back at our reserve, and just where we were before, except that our reserve outposts had gone in by a different road and could n’t be found. The result was that at six o’clock I was told that I must take my company and go out and re-establish the line. I did n’t like the job, but there was no help; so once more I started off just at the decline of the day, in a new country and without guides to establish a six mile line of advanced pickets along the Rappahannock from Freeman’s Ford to Sulphur Springs.

Of course I had the usually annoying time. Night came on just as I started from my reserve. To the next ford I had a guide and reached it without difficulty; but as I dismounted to post a vidette and was pointing out the ford, my horse turned round, kicked up his heels and ran away. The last I saw of him he was pelting over a distant hill and my man was laboring after him. Here was an improvement, but it could n’t be helped and I could n’t wait. So I sent a couple of men to try and catch the horse, took another from one of my men and went forward to re-establish our line. Now I had to go by direction. Of course we soon lost our way and found ourselves at large in the fields and woods. Fortunately we had a fine moon and so I pushed along knowing well that I could not get far without hitting on the river, or road, or Sulphur Springs. It was provoking, of course, but one learns to keep cool and go ahead in time, and so now I pushed along through fields and meadows and over hills until at last we struck the river. Then up and down a steep hill, a beautiful moonlight view of a winding river, a mill and a waterfall, seen through the tops of old oaks from a high, bold bluff, and there at our feet lay our second ford and post. Here I established the second party and Sulphur Springs, three miles up, alone remained. To this I sent the remainder of my force, while I went back to my reserve to send up an increased force. I found my way back and my horse had been recovered; so at eleven o’clock I had finished my work and at one the line was re-established.

I remained out on post for the next forty-eight hours. Picket now is a very different thing from picket in January — no more cold hands and feet and utter misery, but now one can be ready and yet comfortable, and we slept near our horses, while a few men kept watch for the bush-whackers, an enemy feared far more by me than the enemy on our front. Monday morning I passed in the woods until noon reading Russell’s Diary “North and South.” How well that book stands time! Russell told the truth mildly and superficially; he neither saw deeply enough to get at the real good in us, nor did he probe the bad as he easily might have done. What a shameful, ludicrous time he records, and yet beneath all that humbug, cowardice and incompetence, which makes me weep and blush as one reads, how grand and heroic we who were there and of those days knew that it was at bottom. The enthusiasm, loyalty, and self-sacrifice of those days, the sudden up-heaving against that which was wrong on the part of a whole great people we felt and knew; but in Russell’s pages we see only the outside incompetence, self-aggrandisement and self-seeking which has so often nearly cost us our cause. This has been the people’s fight, with only obstruction where they should have had help; incompetence, selfishness and dishonesty where they believed in all good qualities; they have found blood and money and have so far carried and are now carrying this struggle through by sheer force in spite of friends and foes. I do admire the people of the North more than I ever did before, and I do believe that history will do credit to their great deeds in this war. . . . Wednesday morning I returned to the grazing business and went in for a quiet day; but at two o’clock an alarm came in from Sulphur Springs and we saddled up in haste. The enemy was crossing in force and skirmishing had begun.

Henry Adams, private secretary of the US Minister to the UK, to his brother, Charles.

London, June 5, 1863

The weeks dance away as merrily as ever they did in that dimly distant period when we were boys and you used to box my ears because your kite would n’t fly and were the means of getting them boxed by disseminating at the tea-table truthless stories that I was painting myself a moustache with pear-juice — incidents of an early youth which you no doubt have forgotten, as I was the injured party, but which have remained deeply rooted in my associations with an ancient greenroom called the dining-room in a certain house on a hill. At the present day, life is a pretty dull affair, but it passes quick enough. Still, before I die I would like to have one more good time such as I knew in former areas of the earth’s history. . . .

While you, like the Emperor Charles of Spain, are cursing the Rebels and the weather, we are going on in the old track. I am tired of it and want to go home and take a commission in a negro regiment. We dawdle ahead here, going to dinners, races, balls, dropping a mild dew of remonstrances upon the British Government for allowing rebel armaments in their ports; riding in the parks; dining stray Americans and stately English; and in short groaning under the fardel of an easy life. Such a thing it is to be pampered.

We are in short at vacation, politically speaking. I expect it to last a fortnight longer, and then I rather think we shall see the winds rise again. I fancy there will be a good storm by the middle of August. If we were let alone, the two nations would do admirably, but the rebels are doing their best to create a row, and I should not wonder if they succeeded. I believe we should have been at home by this time if the Alexandra had n’t been seized, and there are some ironclads now preparing, whose departure would certainly pack us off. There’s no telling what will happen, but I have no confidence in this Government. . . .

You will see perhaps that we’ve been having an election over in France, which has not been very favorable to our friend Napoleon. European affairs get worse than ever. They will have business enough to occupy them, and the Lord grant that Puebla may hold out. If it can, or if it lasts only a few months or even weeks, and we are reasonably successful on the Mississippi, I think that Europe will turn with considerable disgust from our affairs and will not again burn its fingers with them in our time.

As there does n’t seem to be anything of interest in the periodical way to send you this week, I put into the envelope my little pocket Horace. It can’t take much room and it may amuse you. You will find some few marks of mine in it, and certain odes where the leaf is turned down and pencil-marked, were the ones which Charles James Fox admired most. They are certainly not the best known. . . .

Charles Francis Adams, Jr., to his father

Potomac Creek Bridge, Va.
May 24, 1863

Yours and Henry’s of May 1st with the accompanying volumes of Cust reached me last evening. One of your May letters is still missing. The volumes of Cust are most acceptable. They are written with more spirit than I should expect in so old a man, and his military characters of leading Generals are really in their way admirable — pen and ink sketches of the best class. It is really a most useful book for me and a most admirable selection. If I remain long a soldier it will be of no small use in my education. Did I thank you for “The Golden Treasury “? It’s strange. I laughed as I opened it, it seemed such an odd book for a camp and the field; but strangely enough I find that I read it more than any book I have, and that it is more eagerly picked up by my friends. It is very pleasant to lie down in all this dust and heat and to read some charming little thing of Suckling’s and Herrick’s.

I laughed heartily over your and Henry’s accounts of Earl Russell’s diplomacy and the John Bull diplomacy. How strange, and he a man who will figure in history. John Bull backed you right down and made you explain and eat your humble pie, and every one admired his bold position and laughed at your humiliation; and then comes the secret history and Bottom, that roaring lion, becomes Bottom the sucking dove, and winks at the alarmed Plenipotentiary and says, “it is only I, Bottom the joiner.” And so after all, that high toned descendant of all the Bedfords is no better than some men we do not admire nearer home. But I cannot but wonder at Russell’s course. Any day may force him into real collision with you; the danger of this is imminent; and if it comes, what a terrible handle he has given you… You could expose him to two continents, and your silence now would make the exposure more galling. It seems to me that the noble Earl is now under heavy bonds for his good behavior for the remainder of your term. I think the last part of that term is going to be far more pleasant than the first.

I am very hopeful and sanguine, though no longer confident. In spite of a wretched policy in Washington which perpetually divides and dissipates our strength; and in spite of the acknowledged mediocrity of our Generals, our sheer strength is carrying through this war. In this Army of the Potomac affairs are today truly deplorable, and yet I lose and the army loses no heart — all underneath is so sound and good. We know, we feel, that our misfortunes are accidents and that we must work through them and the real excellence which we daily see and feel must come to the surface. The truth in regard to the late battles is gradually creeping out, and the whole army — Cavalry, Artillery, Infantry and Engineers — feel and know that they won the one decided victory of the war and that Hooker threw it away. Hooker today, I think, stands lower in the estimation of the army than ever did the redoubtable John Pope; but what can we do? Sickles, Butterfield and Hooker are the disgrace and bane of this army; they are our three humbugs, intriguers and demagogues. Let them be disposed of and the army would be well satisfied to be led by any of the corps commanders. We do not need geniuses; we have had enough of brilliant generals; and give us in the due course of promotion an honest, faithful, common-sensed and hard-fighting soldier, not stupid, and we feel sure of success. There are plenty to choose from — Sedgwick, Meade, Reynolds, Slocum and Stoneman, any of them would satisfy. I do not dare to discuss our western prospects. If Vicksburg falls, I care very little what becomes of Richmond, and Grant seems to be doing well. I am sanguine but not as confident, for I cannot forget how McClellan was within four miles of Richmond when the reinforcements of the enemy poured in. Grant must be quick, for if we do not soon hear of the capture of Vicksburg, or of some point necessitating its final fall, I fear we shall hear a different and older story. However, let us hope for the best and fight it out.

Since I last wrote a week ago, nothing of moment has turned. We are still in this hot, exposed, dusty and carrion-scented camp and, as sure as fate will all be sick unless we move out of this region of poisoned atmosphere. We are under orders for early tomorrow morning and I do hope we shall get away. Anything is better, and already all the impetus of my four weeks campaign has expended itself.

We have been going through a course of cleanliness and inspection, getting the men and arms clean and neat, and bringing up our discipline. In hot weather this is very charming and when accompanied by the miserable slavery which is one of the traditions of discipline in this regiment, it makes a camp life of monotony, varied by ham and hard bread (literally my only fare for weeks past) in itself not attractive, as adventitiously disagreeable as may be. On the 9th of April last I had permission to leave camp and dined at General Devens’. On the 17th of May, after four weeks of field duty and not one hour of the whole six weeks off duty, I asked permission of Colonel Curtis to ride over to dine with an old friend at General Sedgwick’s, it being a Sunday afternoon. After much hemming and hawing I was point-blank refused on some miserable reason, such as that I was the only officer in my company here, or something of that sort. With old schoolmates and acquaintances within sight by the dozen, Paul Revere, Sam Quincy and such as they, I have never seen one of them and, for all the good they do me, they might as well be with you. Of course such a system as this, while it does stop gadding on the part of officers, does not tend to make life pleasant or one’s duties agreeable, and, proverbially timid as I am, I think I would rather fight three battles a week and be in the field, than thus rot and rust in camp. Curtis is a good officer and a better fellow and as strict in his own duty as in ours; but while I decidedly admire his faculty of saying “no” to his most intimate associates here, it certainly does not serve to make our pork and hard-bread more palatable. So here I am, attending daily to the needs of my men and horses, duly seeing that hair is short and clothes are clean, paying great attention to belts and sabres, inspecting pistols and policing quarters and so, not very intellectually and indeed with some sense of fatigue, playing my part in the struggle. . . .

The papers have just come with the news of Grant’s successes. This, if all be true, settles in our favor the material issue of the war, and, in a military point of view, I do not see how it can fail, with the recognized energy of our western Generals, to make the destruction of the confederacy as a military power a mere question of time. Our raids would seem to show that the Confederates have no reserve strength. If this be so, their line is like a chain the strength of which is equal to the strength of the weakest link. Broken at Vicksburg they must fall in Tennessee and can be forced out of Virginia. We shall see. Meanwhile let me congratulate you. The fall of Vicksburg will not tend, I imagine, to aggravate your diplomatic troubles.

London, May 14, 1863

The telegraph assures us that Hooker is over the Rappahannock and your division regally indistinct “in the enemy’s rear.” I suppose the campaign is begun, then. Honestly, I’d rather be with you than here, for our state of mind during the next few weeks is not likely to be very easy.

But now that things are begun, I will leave them to your care. Just for your information, I inclose one of Mr. Lawley’s letters from Richmond to the London Times. It is curious. Mr. Lawley’s character here is under a cloud, as, strange to say, is not unusual with the employes of that seditious journal. For this and other reasons I don’t put implicit trust in him, but one fact is remarkably distinct. His dread of the shedding of blood makes him wonderfully anxious for intervention. A prayer for intervention is all that the northern men read in this epistle, and Mr. Lawley’s humanity does n’t quite explain his earnestness. . . .

It was a party of only eleven, and of these Sir Edward [Lytton] was one, Robert Browning another, and a Mr. Ward, a well known artist and member of the Royal Academy, was a third. All were people of a stamp, you know; as different from the sky-blue, skim-milk of the ball-rooms, as good old burgundy is from syrup-lemonade. I had a royal evening; a feast of remarkable choiceness, for the meats were very excellent good, the wines were rare and plentiful, and the company was of earth’s choicest.

Sir Edward is one of the ugliest men it has been my good luck to meet. He is tall and slouchy, careless in his habits, deaf as a ci-devant, mild in manner, and quiet and philosophic in talk. Browning is neat, lively, impetuous, full of animation, and very un-English in all his opinions and appearance. Here, in London Society, famous as he is, half his entertainers actually take him to be an American. He told us some amusing stories about this, one evening when he dined here.

Just to amuse you, I will try to give you an idea of the conversation after dinner; the first time I have ever heard anything of the sort in England. Sir Edward is a great smoker, and although no crime can be greater in this country, our host produced cigars after the ladies had left, and we filled our claret-glasses and drew up together.

Sir Edward seemed to be continuing a conversation with Mr. Ward, his neighbor. He went on, in his thoughtful, deliberative way, addressing Browning.

“Do you think your success would be very much more valuable to you for knowing that centuries hence, you would still be remembered? Do you look to the future connection by a portion of mankind, of certain ideas with your name, as the great reward of all your labor?”

“Not in the least! I am perfectly indifferent whether my name is remembered or not. The reward would be that the ideas which were mine, should live and benefit the race!”

“I am glad to hear you say so,” continued Sir Edward, thoughtfully, “because it has always seemed so to me, and your opinion supports mine. Life, I take to be a period of preparation. I should compare it to a preparatory school. Though it is true that in one respect the comparison is not just, since the time we pass at a preparatory school bears an infinitely greater proportion to a life, than a life does to eternity. Yet I think it may be compared to a boy’s school; such a one as I used to go to, as a child, at old Mrs. S’s at Fulham. Now if one of my old school-mates there were to meet me some day and seem delighted to see me, and asked me whether I recollected going to old mother S’s at Fulham, I should say, ‘Well, yes. I did have some faint remembrance of it! Yes. I could recollect about it.’ And then supposing he were to tell me how I was still remembered there! How much they talked of what a fine fellow I’d been at that school.”

“How Jones Minimus,” broke in Browning, “said you were the most awfully good fellow he ever saw.”

“Precisely,” Sir Edward went on, beginning to warm to his idea. “Should I be very much delighted to hear that? Would it make me forget what I am doing now? For five minutes perhaps I should feel gratified and pleased that I was still remembered, but that would be all. I should go back to my work without a second thought about it.

“Well now, Browning, suppose you, sometime or other, were to meet Shakespeare, as perhaps some of us may. You would rush to him and seize his hand, and cry out, ‘My dear Shakespeare, how delighted I am to see you. You can’t imagine how much they think and talk about you on the earth!’ Do you suppose Shakespeare would be more carried away by such an announcement than I should be at hearing that I was still remembered by the boys at mother S’s at Fulham? What possible advantage can it be to him to know that what he did on the earth is still remembered there?”

The same idea is in LXII of Tennyson’s In Memoriam, but not pointed the same way. It was curious to see two men who, of all others, write for fame, or have done so, ridicule the idea of its real value to them. But Browning went on to get into a very unorthodox humor, and developed a spiritual election that would shock the Pope, I fear. According to him, the minds or souls that really did develope themselves and educate themselves in life, could alone expect to enter a future career for which this life was a preparatory course. The rest were rejected, turned back, God knows what becomes of them, these myriads of savages and brutalized and degraded Christians. Only those that could pass the examination were allowed to commence the new career. This is Calvin’s theory, modified; and really it seems not unlikely to me. Thus this earth may serve as a sort of feeder to the next world, as the lower and middle classes here do to the aristocracy, here and there furnishing a member to fill the gaps. The corollaries of this proposition are amusing to work out.

Camp of 1st Mass. Cav’y

Potomac Creek, May 12, 1863

It is by no means a pleasant thought to reflect how little people at home know of the non-fighting details of waste and suffering of war. We were in the field four weeks, and only once did I see the enemy, even at a distance. You read of Stoneman’s and Grierson’s cavalry raids, and of the dashing celerity of their movements and their long, rapid marches. Do you know how cavalry moves? It never goes out of a walk, and four miles an hour is very rapid marching — “killing to horses” as we always describe it. To cover forty miles is nearly fifteen hours march. The suffering is trifling for the men and they are always well in the field in spite of wet and cold and heat, loss of sleep and sleeping on the ground. In the field we have no sickness; when we get into camp it begins to appear at once.

But with the horses it is otherwise and you have no idea of their sufferings. An officer of cavalry needs to be more horse-doctor than soldier, and no one who has not tried it can realize the discouragement to Company commanders in these long and continuous marches. You are a slave to your horses, you work like a dog yourself, and you exact the most extreme care from your Sergeants, and you see diseases creeping on you day by day and your horses breaking down under your eyes, and you have two resources, one to send them to the reserve camps at the rear and so strip yourself of your command, and the other to force them on until they drop and then run for luck that you will be able to steal horses to remount your men, and keep up the strength of your command. The last course is the one I adopt. I do my best for my horses and am sorry for them; but all war is cruel and it is my business to bring every man I can into the presence of the enemy, and so make war short. So I have but one rule, a horse must go until he can’t be spurred any further, and then the rider must get another horse as soon as he can seize on one. To estimate the wear and tear on horseflesh you must bear in mind that, in the service in this country, a cavalry horse when loaded carries an average of 225 lbs. on his back. His saddle, when packed and without a rider in it, weighs not less than fifty pounds. The horse is, in active campaign, saddled on an average about fifteen hours out of the twenty four. His feed is nominally ten pounds of grain a day and, in reality, he averages about eight pounds. He has no hay and only such other feed as he can pick up during halts. The usual water he drinks is brook water, so muddy by the passage of the column as to be of the color of chocolate. Of course, sore backs are our greatest trouble. Backs soon get feverish under the saddle and the first day’s march swells them; after that day by day the trouble grows. No care can stop it. Every night after a march, no matter how late it may be, or tired or hungry I am, if permission is given to unsaddle, I examine all the horses’ backs myself and see that everything is done for them that can be done, and yet with every care the marching of the last four weeks disabled ten of my horses, and put ten more on the high road to disability, and this out of sixty — one horse in three. Imagine a horse with his withers swollen to three times the natural size, and with a volcanic, running sore pouring matter down each side, and you have a case with which every cavalry officer is daily called upon to deal, and you imagine a horse which has still to be ridden until he lays down in sheer suffering under the saddle. Then we seize the first horse we come to and put the dismounted man on his back. The air of Virginia is literally burdened today with the stench of dead horses, federal and confederate. You pass them on every road and find them in every field, while from their carrions you can follow the march of every army that moves.

On this last raid dying horses lined the road on which Stoneman’s divisions had passed, and we marched over a road made pestilent by the dead horses of the vanished rebels. Poor brutes! How it would astonish and terrify you and all others at home with your sleek, well-fed animals, to see the weak, gaunt, rough animals, with each rib visible and the hip-bones starting through the flesh, on which these “dashing cavalry raids” were executed. It would knock the romance out of you. So much for my cares as a horse-master, and they are the cares of all. For, I can safely assure you, my horses are not the worst in the regiment and that I am reputed no unsuccessful chief-groom. I put seventy horses in the field on the 13th of April, and not many other Captains in the service did as much. . . .

The present great difficulty is to account for our failure to win a great victory and to destroy the rebel army in the recent battle. They do say that Hooker got frightened and, after Sedgwick’s disaster, seemed utterly to lose the capacity for command — he was panic stricken. Two thirds of his army had not been engaged at all, and he had not heard from Stoneman, but he was haunted with a vague phantom of danger on his right flank and base, a danger purely of his own imagining, and he had no peace until he found himself on this side of the river. Had he fought his army as he might have fought it, the rebel army would have been destroyed and Richmond today in our possession. We want no more changes, however, in our commanders, and the voice of the Army, I am sure, is to keep Hooker; but I am confident that he is the least respectable and reliable and I fear the least able commander we have had. I never saw him to speak to, but I think him a noisy, low-toned intriguer, conceited, intellectually “smart,” physically brave. Morally, I fear, he is weak; his habits are bad and, as a general in high command, I have lost all confidence in him. But the army is large, brave and experienced. We have many good generals and good troops, and, in spite of Hooker, I think much can be done if we are left alone. Give us no more changes and no new generals!

As for the cavalry, its future is just opening and great names will be won in the cavalry from this day forward. How strangely stupid our generals and Government have been! How slow to learn even from the enemy! Here the war is two years old and throughout it we have heard but one story — that in Virginia cavalry was useless, that the arm was the poorest in the service. Men whom we called generals saw the enemy’s cavalry go through and round their armies, cutting their lines of supply and exposing their weakness; and yet not one of these generals could sit down and argue thus: “The enemy’s cavalry almost ruin me, and I have only a few miles of base and front, all of which I can guard; but the enemy has here in Virginia thousands of miles of communication; they cannot guard it without so weakening their front that I can crush them; if they do not guard it, every bridge is a weak point and I can starve them by cutting off supplies. My cavalry cannot travel in any direction without crossing a railroad, which the enemy cannot guard and which is an artery of their existence. A rail pulled up is a supply train captured. Give me 25,000 cavalry and I will worry the enemy out of Virginia.” None of our generals seem to have had the intelligence to argue thus and so they quietly and as a fixed fact said: “Cavalry cannot be used in Virginia,” and this too while Stuart and Lee were playing around them. And so they paralyzed their right arm. Two years have taught them a simple lesson and today it is a recognized fact that 25,000 well appointed cavalry could force the enemy out of Virginia. How slow we are as a people to learn the art of war! Still, we do learn.

But the troubles of the cavalry are by no means over. Hooker, it is said, angrily casting about for some one to blame for his repulse, has, of all men, hit upon Stoneman. Why was not Stoneman earlier? Why did not he take Richmond? and they do say Hooker would deprive him of his command if he dared. Meanwhile, if you follow the newspapers, you must often have read of one Pleasonton and his cavalry. Now Pleasonton is the bete noire of all cavalry officers. Stoneman we believe in. We believe in his judgment, his courage and determination. We know he is ready to shoulder responsibility, that he will take good care of us and won’t get us into places from which he can’t get us out. Pleasonton also we have served under. He is pure and simple a newspaper humbug. You always see his name in the papers, but to us who have served under him and seen him under fire he is notorious as a bully and toady. He does nothing save with a view to a newspaper paragraph. At Antietam he sent his cavalry into a hell of artillery fire and himself got behind a bank and read a newspaper, and there, when we came back, we all saw him and laughed among ourselves. Yet mean and contemptible as Pleasonton is, he is always in at Head Quarters and now they do say that Hooker wishes to depose Stoneman and hand the command over to Pleasonton. You may imagine our sensations in prospect of the change. Hooker is powerful, but Stoneman is successful. . . .

Hartwood Church, Va.
May 8, 1863

This is indeed a twice told tale and of the weariest at that. Here am I once more picketing Hartwood Church after another battle of Fredericksburg, just as I did last December! I did on the fifteenth of last month confidently hope never again to see this modest brick edifice, but the wisdom of Providence differently ordained and here I am once more and, from here, go on with my broken story.

I left off with Sunday, 26th April, and an order to send me out on picket. I got off at about ten o’clock and reached my position on the road to Sulphur Springs at about four. I had only about sixty men and my line was very long. The officers whom I relieved looked disgusted enough when I told them what my force was, and said that they had twice as many and had sent for more. However I was sent to relieve them and went to work to do so. There are few things more disgusting I imagine than being called upon to establish a line of pickets at night and in a strange country, and then having night shut down on you just when you realize how difficult your task is. It took me four hours to ride over my line, and when I returned I was in an awful maze. Major Covode, whom I relieved, had taken me through the fields instead of over the roads, and I no longer knew where the river ran, which was north or south, or indeed where I was. My mind was a jumble of fords, hills and roads, with a distinct recollection of a rapid brook called “the river,” and the immense desolate ruins of the huge hotel at the Springs, burnt by Pope last summer and through which I had ridden by moonlight. Major Covode left me with the encouraging information that I need n’t fear much until the river went down, but then I’d have to look sharp and I proceeded to secure myself.

As for guarding the army, I gave that idea up at once and perforce ran for luck; but I was n’t going to be surprised myself, so I made my arrangements to protect myself and concluded that they were eminently unsatisfactory. Flint with twenty men was posted about four miles to my right and in a very exposed and dangerous place, and my force was too weak to keep up communication with him. He might be swallowed whole and I not know it. I was near Sulphur Springs and tolerably secure until the river fell. The enemy left us alone, however, and in the morning one of my men crossed the river and found it fordable. I sent in my report and at nine o’clock — as I was not likely to be on duty three days — went out to study the country. At two o’clock I had gotten through and set my mind at ease, for I understood the position and knew how to go to work for the next night, and at three o’clock I was notified that I was relieved. Our picket duty is made immensely more difficult here by the state of the population. The enemy know the country and we don’t, and every man is a citizen or a soldier, as the occasion offers. We feel no single man is safe and so our posts have to be double, and we feel at any time that these may be picked off and thus our reserves and the army exposed to surprises. I was glad to be relieved, although now I felt that I knew what I was about, and at seven o’clock got off and got into camp at nine. At eleven Flint got in and we turned in for a good night.

Monday the weather had changed again and all day it rained and was threatening rain, but we nevertheless went to work and made ourselves very comfortable. We moved our squadron camp to the top of the hill and had the tents pitched in line and our own head quarters fenced in with brush. When evening came all was finished, swept up and clean, and I looked round on the pleasantest camp I had ever seen in a bivouac. Teague, Flint’s 2d Lieutenant, had constructed a rustic bench and the bright fire in front of it threw its light into the shelter tents where Mac had ensconced himself on our blankets. It was very pretty and Flint and I sat down to a pipe of deep contentment, preparatory to a sleep of supreme comfort.

While we were simmering over these pleasant sensations an orderly blundered by inquiring the way to Colonel Curtis’ quarters, and a cold shiver went through me. In a minute more orders came for me to get ready to march at once. It was then eight o’clock, and a night march was before us, and we so comfortable and tired! It went very hard, but it had to go, and at nine o’clock we were in the saddle and our comfortable camp was nowhere. It was a general move. We marched down to Bealeton and struck the railroad and kept along until we came to within a mile of the river when we turned off into the woods, and Mac lost us and disappeared. It was then about two o’clock in the morning. We dismounted, unsaddled, built some fires and went to sleep before them. The night was cloudy, damp and warm. We were called and saddled at daylight and the men got their breakfasts — mine being a cup of coffee and at eight we started. In vain had I whistled and inquired for Mac. He seemed gone and I gave him up; but just as our column was formed out in the fields my heart was rejoiced by seeing him poking down the ranks, evidently looking for me. He caught sight of me at last and evinced his satisfaction by at once laying down and going to sleep. Since that he has pegged steadily along with the column and is now placidly sleeping in my tent. I did n’t expect to keep him so long, but now I think he’s got the hang of it and has a chance of coming through.

We marched towards the river and halted. It was a cold, cloudy, dismal east wind morning. Apparently the ford there was impracticable, for presently we started again and moved rapidly down the river. I now felt pretty sick of this running round after a ford and began to doubt whether we ever should get across that miserable little river. My doubts were solved, however, when at noon we got down to Kelly’s Ford and I saw a pontoon bridge thrown across and the cavalry fording. Here at last we crossed the river at a point which we reached at the end of our first day’s march, and we left camp on April 13th and this was April 29th. After crossing we dismounted and let our horses graze and lay there, doing nothing, or mounting, moving and accomplishing nothing, until nearly evening, when just as we were thinking of going into camp, the column began to defile into the woods and we followed in our turn. We had had nothing to eat since the evening before and were getting cross; but luckily, just then Flint’s man came up with a canteen of coffee and a plate of meat, and at the same time the skirmishing began in front. So we rode forward feasting and ready to fight.

We pressed rapidly forward in line of battle through the woods with a rapid skirmishing fire in front and a few shells now and then going or coming and, presently, about sunset, emerged onto an immense open country, on the farther side of which could just be seen the enemy’s cavalry. Here we formed line, but it was too late to attack and so presently we fell back to the edge of the wood to pass the night. Of course we could have no fires and our ranks were not broken; but the men dismounted, the horses were fed part at a time, and the men lay down and slept in front of them, holding the bridles. Presently it began to rain and kept it up smartly pretty much all night, but we slept none the less and I know I slept well. We certainly calculated on a fight that morning, but when morning came the rumor crept round that the enemy was gone and so it proved. It had stolen away like a thief in the night and left open to us the road to Culpepper. This we took at once and again breakfasted in the saddle, glad enough to see Davis, Flint’s man, with his coffee and tin dish of fried beef.

This was Thursday and we had one of the most delightful and interesting marches I ever enjoyed. The morning was cloudy, but it cleared bright and warm at noon, and the afternoon and night were charming, with a few slight drawbacks. The country towards Culpepper is open and we approached the town in order of battle — five columns or squadrons, marching straight across the country and all manœuvring together. We saw nothing of Lee or Stuart, however, except his dead horses, which lay along our course thick and unburied, and by noon we were close to Culpepper. The country looks old, war-worn and wasted, but not so bad as the other side of the river. Most of the houses along the road were deserted and apparently had been so for a long time. Some of them were evidently old Virginia plantation houses, and once had been aristocratic and lazy. Now they are pretty thoroughly out of doors. We marched rapidly through Culpepper and out on the other side, exciting the especial notice of the negroes and curs of the town and the lazy attention of the few whites left. It’s quite a Yankee looking place and, with Warrenton, very unlike most Virginia towns. Hardly were we dismounted when I was sent scampering out to the front to attend to a party of rebels who were said to be threatening our advance guard, but when I had pounded my horses up hill and down dale for a mile and a half, I found no enemy to attend to and was told I might come back and feed my men and horses. I did so and we lay off for a couple of hours in the woods. Presently the column came up and we fell in and continued our march until we came to the battlefield of Cedar Mountain, where we halted while the column was passing an obstacle in the road. Here you know our 2d Regiment was so cut up and Stephen Perkins was killed. We looked over the field and saw the graves of our troops, but there are few signs of a battlefield left. I noticed that our horses would not eat the grass and, as we passed one ditch, some of my men hit upon a skull, apparently dug up and gnawed by the swine. Such it is to die for one’s country!

While resting here a tremendous shower came up and, before it was over, we were again on the road. As night came on and we approached the Rapidan things got worse. The afternoon was clear and was followed by a full moonlight evening, but the roads were heavy enough and the head of the column passed on at a gait very unmerciful to the rear. I once got a mile to the rear of the squadron in front of me and was kept at a trot the whole time. At sunset we entered a thick marshy wood of heavy timber, between Cedar Mountain and the Rapidan, and pressed on, through perfectly fearful roads, until about eight when the river brought the column up standing. Then came one of those nights which try the temper and patience. After dark, with exhausted horses, tired, wet and hungry, we were first kept waiting and then marched into the woods, and then more delay, and then marched back in search of a camp. But the whole wood for miles was literally a marsh, and so after bungling round for some time, at ten o’clock we were dismounted and told to “make ourselves comfortable.” It was the worst camping ground I ever saw. The mud and water stood everywhere up to the horses’ fetlocks and our ankles and it seemed a dead flat; but the moon was in our favor. Had it rained, it would have been very trying. The men picked out the dry spots, or those least wet, and Flint, Teague and I had some young trees cut and, resting one end on a dead trunk and the other in the mud, made a sort of inclined plane bed on which we spread our blankets, had some coffee and beef and went to sleep.

The next day was the 1st of May — the day two years that you sailed for Europe, as I did not fail to remember. It was a delightful day, bright and sunny. We did not leave our charming camp, christened by the men the water-cure establishment — until about nine, and then went slowly forward to where we could hear some skirmishing and artillery practice along the line of the river. Presently we halted and our carbineers went to the front and there we waited all day. I don’t know what the plan was, but I cannot think that it included our crossing the river. The enemy had a few pieces of artillery on the hills beyond and the sharpshooters lined both banks. No attempt was made by us to cross and our plan seemed rather to be to make a feint and to distract the enemy’s attention from some other point. Once or twice during the day we changed our position, but otherwise we killed time only and finally when evening came and when we were in a very comfortable position orders came for us to go into camp and to our unspeakable disgust we were marched straight back to the water-cure establishment, and dumped down into the mud again. This time I could n’t stand it and at eleven o’clock, after wading round and looking at my horses wholly unable to lay down, I got permission to move my company and went to bed satisfied that men and horses were high and dry.

Saturday we started at eight o’clock and, to our immense surprise, found ourselves on the back track. They said that we had accomplished all we came for, but we could n’t see it, and we did n’t relish our march. As for me, I did n’t relish the reticence about high quarters. There seemed to be an air of solemn silence which omened badly and I felt sure that evil tidings had come from Hooker. Still the day was very fine and the spring young and full of life and at this season, in this open air life, one can’t be dull long, so I soon brightened up and was all ready for the first rumor which told us of a battle and a great victory of Hooker’s the day before. After that we lived in anxiety and rumors, now victory, now defeat, now all up and again all down, until the final acknowledgment came. We did not hear the guns of the battle until that afternoon, but as we approached the Rapidan near Ely’s Ford they began to boom faintly up and when we reached the ford at sunset they sounded loud and fast. Here we halted and went into camp with a notice that we should go on again at midnight; but just as we were getting ready to lay down there came a most tremendous volley of musketry close to us, causing us to saddle with the least possible delay. Our camps were knocked to pieces and the regiments moved off as soon as possible and my squadron was ordered to support Tidball’s battery. I reported and all the dispositions were made and things were prepared for a night attack, and then our commanders concluded that there would n’t be any after all. It proved that a rebel regiment had fired across the river into our camp and had then subsided into silence. So I was told that I might unsaddle and go to sleep, which I did, and at one o’clock we lay down in the hospitable furrows of a corn field to be called at four.

Saturday was a lazy, anxious disagreeable day. Heavy firing in the direction of Chancellorsville, about five miles off, began at daybreak and was kept up until nearly noon without intermission. We anxiously watched the direction and distance and tried to draw inferences from it. We listened to all sorts of rumors which came flowing in, most of them encouraging, and tried to believe them, and, in fact, we did and that afternoon I, for one, was sanguine and confident. At noon the battery left and I was relieved, so, to pass the time, I was ordered to go and strip an old secesh farmer of his corn, for our horses were well-nigh starving. I did so in most approved style and in reply to his long story of losses, plunderings and impending starvation turned the deaf ear of duty, and, as I swept off his last ears of seed corn, told him that Virginia had brought this on herself and need expect no mercy. I think that that old pod realises that the ordinance of secession was a mistake. After finishing this job I took my squadron into the woods and we lay off for a few hours under the trees in the pleasant spring afternoon until the column started to cross the river, when I fell in.

We crossed and came into our lines a couple of miles on the other side. Though I did not know it, those two miles were very dangerous to us, for it was through thick woods, of which we did not hold possession, and in which a few felled trees and a small force of infantry could have driven us back. We got through safely however and came into our lines. We found our forces throwing up defences, as busy as bees, already strongly protected and apparently in excellent spirits. They looked fresh, clean and confident. We went on to U.S. ford and soon struck the main road with its endless confusion — reinforcements, supply and ammunition trains and messengers going to the front; stragglers, ambulances and stretchers with the loads of wounded and dying men toiling to the rear; cattle, horses and mules; wounded men resting, tired men sleeping, all here looking excited and worn out with fatigue. The news here was not so good, but the 11th Corps had fought here and had not fought well, and we thought it was probably colored by their reverses.

We got to the ford at dusk and encamped, and in the evening we had a shower or two and in the morning we woke by a brisk discharge of artillery and bursting of shells. At ten o’clock we moved and came across the river and encamped on this side in a wood, a mile or so from the river, and received a new issue of forage or rations. The rumors were very good and very bad. At first, the enemy was surrounded, Sedgwick held the heights and we were getting ready to follow in pursuit. Then Sedgwick had lost the heights and Hooker was coming to grief, and night fell on rumors of an unpleasant aspect. Still our quarters were comfortable and we turned in for a good night’s sleep; but at two o’clock we were called and ordered to be ready to move in ten minutes and three found us on the road. We marched down towards Falmouth, utterly ignorant of our destination or of what was going on; but as day broke through a thick heavy fog we found various stragglers, etc., and picked up scraps of news. It was all bad, not decisive, but bad; things evidently were going wrong. At last I met a Captain from Sedgwick’s Corps who gave me the gross results, and in a few minutes I rode through Falmouth as dejected a man as you would care to see. I felt sick of the war, of the army, almost of life. I thought of you and of this result abroad; it seemed too much and I felt despairing. We presently halted beyond Falmouth and there passed the day trying not to believe news which we felt to be true. The morning was very hot, but in the afternoon a tremendous rain-storm came up ending in a northeaster, wetting us through, driving us out of our tents and freezing us nearly to death, and in this we passed the night.

Wednesday was cheerless to a degree. Wind northeast, cold and rainy, and we wet and shivering; but it wore away by degrees and our spirits kept rising, until at last we actually believed that the army had not retreated; but in the afternoon came the crusher. The news of the retreat of the army came upon us at once with the order to saddle and return to our old camp. We did so and returned to Potomac Run Bridge. It was a cold, cheerless afternoon. The rain fell by showers in torrents and we had been wet through twenty-four hours. We found our old camp deserted, burned up, filthy and surrounded with dead horses. We tied up our horses and stood dismally round in the pouring rain. Presently shelters were rigged up and we crawled into them and passed a supperless, wet night, by no means uncheerfully, for things were too bad to be trifled with now and woe to a grumbling man, or one who intimated that things might be more agreeable.

Thursday, just as we were getting ready to clear away the wreck and to discover what our four weeks of active service had left of our companions an order came for us at once to go out on picket. I was not sorry to do it, for the old camp is not pleasant. We did so and here I am now, doing the lightest possible picket duty and sitting in the woods. To be sure it rained again last night and we are still wet; but we are out of that confounded filthy camp which oppresses us with defeat.

Potomac Bridge, Va.
May 9, 1863

Back at Potomac Run and so ends today the four toughest weeks campaigning that I have ever felt — mud and rain, rain and mud, long marches and short forages. It is strange how I like the life though, in spite of its hardships and beastly slavery. I no longer care for a leave of absence, or wish to go home. I am satisfied to stay here and see the thing through. Still we are now clearing away the wreck and can see what damage is done. We got in from picket last night at nine o’clock, and today it has cleared off and we can take account of stock. The trip has used up about twenty of my sixty horses and done no good to the men, but we have seen no fighting. Our regiment has lost one officer, poor Phillips, picked off by a sharp-shooter on the Rapidan. He was a promoted sergeant and came from Springfield. Our division has lost its General — Averell — placed under arrest, why, I do not know. I think they’ll have to release him, as, good or bad, he’s the best we have. Stoneman turned up last night and what he has done the newspapers will tell you; I can’t. As for the Army of the Potomac, it’s loss is great, but not irreparable. The men do not seem cast down or demoralised and the enemy cannot afford to diminish their forces opposite. The real trouble, I imagine, is the mustering out of the two year men. If it were not for that I should feel confidence in immediate movement. As for Hooker, I think the army feels confidence in him. He ran his head against a stone wall here, but that is his tendency and the lesson will be of great service. I think he ‘ll do much better next time. On the whole things might be much worse; but the army must be kept in motion and the enemy engaged. If Hooker rests, he’s lost, and so I look to being in the field again at once….