Camp White, December 3, 1863.
Dear Mother: — We are all here living very comfortably. Webb and Ruddy are learning lessons daily. Webb is a little backward and hates books. The other little fellow is like Birch and takes to larnin’.”
Lucy writes very few letters to anybody and avoids it when she can. She finds a sympathizing friend on this subject in Mrs. Comly, who dislikes it equally. When I am with Lucy, I do the writing.
We are likely to be engaged in pretty active operations here this winter. We are doing all that the weather allows, and have been pretty lucky so far. It will not surprise me if we have some rather severe fighting.
My regiment is re-enlisting daily. There is no doubt that it will be reorganized for three years more before the winter is over. There is a general disposition with officers and men to see the end of the war in the field, if our lives and health are spared. Your letter mailed 30th came last night. Quick time! — My love to all.
Affectionately, your son,
R.
Mrs. Sophia Hayes.
December 3, [1863]. — The recent victory of Grant near Chattanooga seems to be very complete. We have not heard from Burnside, besieged in Knoxville by Longstreet, since the 24th or 25th. We have some apprehensions, but hope that he has been relieved by Grant’s success. Meade has pushed into the heart of eastern Virginia after Lee. I fear the result. The Army of the Potomac has been as unlucky on Virginia soil as the army of Lee on our soil.
Company B left today for home, over three-fourths, fifty-four, having enlisted as veteran volunteers. Companies A, E, and F are likely to follow suit.
26.— Thanksgiving Day. Reports of fighting at Knoxville, Chattanooga, and with Lee. If the result is generally favorable, we shall see daylight plainer than ever; if otherwise, darkness again but not so “visible” as before.
25. — Lucy and I came up on the Viola.
November 21. Saturday. — Went to Gallipolis to meet the family, — Lucy, Webb, and Rud with Grandma Webb.
November 9. — The ground is white with snow for the first time this year. Drs. Mussey and Blaney called Saturday. It is intimated that there will be difficulty, or is danger of difficulty, on account of Dr. Webb’s long absence.
Camp White, November 8, 1863.
Dear Uncle: — I received your letter of the 4th last night. Very glad to hear Birch is still contented. The tool-chest would just hit his fancy. He ought to learn the use of tools, but I don’t imagine he has any mechanical turn. The only decent thing I could ever make was a bow, and that was rather from a knowledge of the best material than from any skill in whittling. . . .
Stormy weather here. A large part of our forces is out after a fight with a considerable Rebel force in the mountains. We are anxiously waiting the result. Only two companies of my immediate command is [are] out. This probably the last of our campaigning in this quarter for a season.
Sincerely,
R. B. Hayes.
S. BIRCHARD.
November 7, [1863]. — I am asked if I would not be gratified if my friends would procure me promotion to a brigadier-generalship. My feeling is that I would rather be one of the good colonels than one of the poor generals. The colonel of a regiment has one of the most agreeable positions in the service, and one of the most useful. “A good colonel makes a good regiment,” is an axiom.
Two things make me sometimes think it desirable to have the promotion, viz., the risk of having a stupid brigadier put over me, and the difficulty and uncertainty of keeping up my regiment — that is the risk of losing my colonelcy.
November 5, 1863. — A warm fall evening. How I am moved as I read the letter below. My own dear boys, and my feelings towards the soldiers who are kind to them; Willie too — the name of sister Fanny’s lost boy. Oh, and my dear sister too. How many will love General Sherman for that letter who would never care for any laurels he might earn in battle.
[Pasted in the Diary is a copy of General Sherman’s famous letter to Captain C. C. Smith of the Thirteenth Regulars, thanking the regiment — in which his little son Willie had fancied himself a sergeant — for the “kind behavior” of its officers and soldiers to his “poor child.” “Please convey to the battalion,” the letter says in conclusion, “my heartfelt thanks, and assure each and all that if in after years they call on me or mine, and mention that they were of the Thirteenth Regulars, when poor Willy was a sergeant, they will have a key to the affections of my family that will open all it has, that we will share with them our last blanket, our last crust.”]
Camp White, (Sunday), November 1, 1863.
Dear Mother: — It is a lovely morning. I have just got into new quarters, two tents together on a stockade, making two good little rooms with a coal stove. As cozy as need be. . . .
We had preaching in our camp last Sunday by the chaplain of the Thirty-fourth, Mr. Collier, a rather entertaining speaker, and have been promised meetings every other Sunday hereafter. It is so unusual a thing that the novelty makes it attractive, if there were nothing else to recommend it. . . .
Affectionately, your son,
Rutherford.
Mrs. Sophia Hayes.
