Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes

[May] 26. Thursday.—. . . Trains arriving; looks like moving on Staunton soon. News from Grant rather favorable.

Meadow Bluff, May 25, 1864.

Dearest: — We are preparing for another move. It will require a week’s time, I conjecture, to get shoes, etc., etc. It looks as if the route would be through Lewisburg, White Sulphur, Covington, Jackson River, etc., to Staunton. The major came up this morning with a few recruits and numbers of the sick, now recovered. They bring a bright new flag which I can see floating in front of [the] Twenty-third headquarters. I suspect it to be your gift. Three hundred more of the Thirty-sixth also came up. The Fifth and Thirteenth are coming, so I shall have my own proper brigade all together soon. . . .

Brigdon carried the brigade flag. It was knocked out of his hands by a ball striking the staff only a few inches from where he held it. It was torn twice also by balls.

I see the papers call this “Averell’s raid.” Very funny! The cavalry part of it was a total failure. General Averell only got to the railroad at points where we had first got in. He was driven back at Saltville and Wytheville. Captain Gilmore is pleased. He says the Second Virginia was the best of any of them! . . .

I am now on most intimate and cordial terms with General Crook. He is a most capital commander. His one fault is a too reckless exposure of himself in action and on the march — not a bad fault in some circumstances.

I shall probably send my valise back to Gallipolis from here to Mr. James Taylor. It will contain a leather case with Roman candles for the boys, a sabre will go with it for one of them, a wooden-soled shoe, such as we destroyed great numbers of at Dublin, and very little else. If it is lost, no matter. . . .

May 26. — Just received your welcome letters of the 6th and 14th. Very glad you are so fortunate. Write to Uncle and Mother when you feel like it.

We shall start soon — perhaps in the morning. We take only one wagon to a regiment. The Fifth is now coming into camp. The general is pleased with Colonel Tomlinson’s conduct and Colonel Tomlinson will remain. The Thirteenth will be here tonight. All my brigade together. The rest of the Thirty-sixth is here, six hundred and fifty in all. We feel well about the future. General Crook is more hopeful than ever before.

You need not believe the big stories of great victories or defeats at Richmond. But I think we shall gradually overcome them.

Good-bye, darling,

R.

Mrs. Hayes.

[May] 25. Wednesday. — Major Mcllrath with seven hundred of various regiments came in at 10 A. M.; Lieutenant Hicks, Dr. McClure, and forty men of [the] Twenty-third; about three hundred of [the] Thirty-sixth. Wrote to mother and Lucy.

[May] 24. Tuesday. — Finished Jenkins trial. No definite news lately. Charlie Hay, Sergeant Heiliger, and Sergeant Clark returned. Hay and Clark get from Casey’s Board captaincies of first class. Heiliger gets second lieutenant of second class. A queer result. The three are probably nearly equal in merit. Major McIlrath reported near with detachments for all regiments. Captain Hood sick.

[May] 23. Monday. — Court martial continues. Prosecution closed yesterday. Defense opens this A. M. Adjourned until tomorrow, 9 A. M., after hearing all the testimony the accused had [to] present. Two captains and several men captured near here by guerrillas.

Sunday, [May] 22. — President of court martial to try the Rebel quartermaster (Jenkins), of [the] Fifteenth Virginia, for pillaging. Sat at Sharpe’s; Lieutenant-Colonel Bukey, Major Carey, Major Cadot, Captain Henry, Sweet, etc., etc.

News from Grant confirms my impression that the storm, mud, and rain prevented a decisive victory.

May 21. Saturday. — Rations of coffee, sugar, hard bread, etc., filled our camp with joy last night. It now looks as if Grant had failed to crush Lee merely on account of rain and mud. We seem to have had the best of the fighting and to have taken the most prisoners. I suspect we have gained the most guns and lost the most killed and wounded. General Crook thinks Grant will force the fighting until some definite result is obtained.

May 20. Friday. — Settled weather at last; cold nights. One of the most interesting and affecting things is the train of contrabands, old and young, male and female — one hundred to two hundred — toiling uncomplainingly along after and with the army. They with our prisoners and the trains left for Gauley this morning.

Meadow Bluff, Greenbrier County, West Virginia,

May 19, 1864.

Dear Uncle: — We are safely within what we now call “our own lines” after twenty-one days of marching, fighting, starving, etc., etc. For twelve days we have had nothing to eat except what the country afforded. Our raid has been in all respects successful. We destroyed the famous Dublin Bridge and eighten miles of the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad and many depots and stores; captured ten pieces of artillery, three hundred prisoners, General Jenkins and other officers among them, and killed and wounded about five hundred, besides utterly routing Jenkins’ army in the bloody battle of Cloyd’s Mountain. My brigade had two regiments and part of a third in the battle. [The] Twenty-third lost one hundred killed and wounded. We had a severe duty but did just as well as I could have wished. We charged a Rebel battery entrenched in [on] a wooded hill across an open level meadow three hundred yards wide and a deep ditch, wetting me to the waist, and carried it without a particle of wavering or even check, losing, however, many officers and men killed and wounded. It being the vital point General Crook charged with us in person. One brigade from the Army of the Potomac (Pennsylvania Reserves) broke and fled from the field. Altogether, this is our finest experience in the war, and General Crook is the best general we have ever served under, not excepting Rosecrans.

Many of the men are barefooted, and we shall probably remain here some time to refit. We hauled in wagons to this point, over two hundred of our wounded, crossing two large rivers by fording and ferrying and three ranges of high mountains. The news from the outside world is meagre and from Rebel sources. We almost believe that Grant must have been successful from the little we gather.

Sincerely,

R. B. Hayes.

S. Birchard.