Thursday, January 2, 1862. — Cleared off moderately cold; quiet and beautiful weather. Remarkable season. Rode with Colonel Scammon about the works. Major Comly reports finding about one hundred and twenty muskets, etc., concealed in and about Raleigh; also twelve or fifteen contrabands arrived. What to do with them is not so troublesome yet as at the East. Officers and soldiers employ them as cooks and servants. Some go on to Ohio.
Nobody in this army thinks of giving up to Rebels their fugitive slaves. Union men might perhaps be differently dealt with — probably would be. If no doubt of their loyalty, I suppose they would again get their slaves. The man who repudiates all obligations under the Constitution and laws of the United States is to be treated as having forfeited those rights which depend solely on the laws and Constitution. I don’t want to see Congress meddling with the slavery question. Time and the progress of events are solving all the questions arising out or slavery in a way consistent with eternal principles of justice. Slavery is getting death-blows. As an “institution,” it perishes in this war. It will take years to get rid of its debris, but the “sacred” is gone.
Camp Union, Fayetteville, Virginia, Wednesday, New Year’s Day, 1862. — Sun shone brightly an hour or two; mild winter weather, then windy and threatening. Rode with Colonel Scammon four or five miles southwest of town. Wind blew all day as if a storm were by brewing, but no rain or snow. I set it down as a pleasant day. Number 1 for January 1862.
At dinner, speaking of naming my boy, I said: “The name was all ready if I had heard that a daughter was born.” “Fanny Lucy” or “Lucy Fanny” — linking together the names of the two dear ones, wife and sister. Dear Fanny! what an angel she was, and, may I hope, now is.
Heard from home. Sergeant [John] McKinley, with letter and watch — tight, drunk, the old heathen, and insisting on seeing the madame! I didn’t dream of that. He must be a nuisance, a dangerous one too, when drunk. A neat, disciplined, well-drilled soldier under rule, but what a savage when in liquor! Must be careful whom I send home.
Tuesday, December 31, 1861. — New Year’s Eve — the last day of the year — a busy day with me. A review, an inspection, and a muster of the regiment all by me; also an inspection of McMullen’s Battery. Yesterday received letters from Platt and Dr. Joe. The little stranger is more like Birt than the others and smaller than Rud. Birch indignant that he isn’t big enough to drill! — A lovely day today. Twenty-six fine days this month; a few [of] them cold, not severely so, but all good weather. Lucy getting on well. Good, all!
Monday, December 30. — A “magnificent splendid” day — the twenty-fifth fine day this month; twenty-five out of the last twenty-six!! The companies at Raleigh diminish our strength. Five hundred and twenty present. Total in companies here seven hundred and forty-three.
Camp Union, Fayetteville, Virginia, Sunday, December 29. — Major Comly (J. M.) with five companies marched today to occupy Raleigh twenty-five miles south of here. Companies F and G, Twenty-third, two companies of Thirtieth, and one company, Twenty-sixth. Weather, bright and clear; ground, frozen hard; roads, good. Success attend them! Company inspection.
Camp Union, Fayetteville, Virginia, December 29, 1861.
Dearest: — I have no letter from home since the boy was born. I have by mail Commercials of several days later date and hoped for a letter; but I comfort myself by thinking that all is going well with you, or the telegraph would inform me.
I now begin to think anxiously of coming home. If nothing occurs unforeseen, I must get home before the next month runs out. We have sent Major Comly with a detachment to occupy Raleigh, twenty-five miles further into the bowels of the land, and his absence may prevent my coming so soon as I hope, but I shall come if possible.
Dr. McCurdy is sick, and will probably go home soon. Dr. Hayes, the brigade surgeon, seems to be a nice gentleman, and gets along well with Dr. Jim, as surgeon of the Twenty-third. Colonel Scammon has been unwell, and says that while he likes Dr. Hayes as a gentleman, he would prefer to be doctored by Dr. Joe, and inquires often as to his coming. I tell him Dr. Joe will in no event return before the 10th and not then unless you are out of all danger.
Make Joe tell me all about “the boy.” Does “the face of the boy indicate the heart of the boy”? Do you love him as much as the others? Do you feel sorry the fourth was not a daughter? I think it’s best as it is. — Love to “all the boys” and kiss the little one.
Affectionately,
R. B. Hayes.
Mrs. Hayes.
Saturday, December 28.— Cold very, but still and clear — good weather. Warm in the afternoon. Rode with Colonel Scammon to the different works. They are well done as works, not very necessary, and not perhaps in the very best localities, but well enough. They are, I suspect, creditable to Colonel Scammon as military earthworks of no great pretension. Attended the funeral of another man of Company B. Sad and solemn. The lively music after all is over offends my taste. — A good, lively drill.
Friday, December 27. — A cold and windy but clear morning — good winter weather. It was warm last night until 2 [A. M.], wind veered around from south to north and [it was] cold as blazes (why blazes?). Rode with Major Comly down to Captain McIlrath’s. He preferred remaining in his quarters to a trip to Raleigh. Five companies to be sent to Raleigh to occupy it, — to push further if best to do so.
Drilled in a clear, brisk air. Colonel Scammon is preparing to send to Raleigh in the hope that a party of the enemy at Princeton may be surprised; also that railroad bridges near Newbern may be destroyed.
Harvey Carrington and T. S. Dickson, Company C, complain of Sergeant Keen and Thomas Mason for keeping two hundred and ten dollars won at “Honest John.” They say the agreement was that whatever was lost or won was to be returned and that they played merely to induce others to play. I told them that as they, by their own stories, were stool-pigeons, they were entitled to no sympathy. They admitted that much of the money had been won gaming. I declined to order the money returned to them. I sent for Sergeant Keen and Mason, who denied the story of Carrington and Dickson, but admitted winning the money. I ordered them to pay the money into the company fund of Company C where it will be used to buy gloves and such other comforts as the Government does not furnish for all the company.
Thursday, December 26. — A cloudy day — thawing and muddy. The colonel is planning an expedition through Raleigh to Princeton to capture what is there of the enemy, — viz. six hundred sick with a guard of about one hundred men, arms and stores, with a possibility of getting Floyd who is said to be without guard at and to burn the railroad bridges near Newbern. The plan is to mount one-half the force on pack mules and ride and tie — to make a forced march so as to surprise the enemy. He does not seem willing to look the difficulties in the face, and to prepare to meet them. He calls it forty or fifty miles. It is sixty-seven and one-half. He thinks men can move night and day, three or four miles an hour. Night in those muddy roads will almost stop a column. With proper preparations, the thing is perhaps practicable. Let me study to aid in arranging it, if it is to be.
Dear wife! how is she? — Soon after breakfast the sun chased the clouds away and we had a warm spring day. The bluebirds are coming back if they ever left. Our twenty-first fine day this month.
Camp Union, Christmas morning, 1861.
Dearest: — A merry Christmas to you and the little stranger (I suppose he is a stranger to you no longer) —and to all at home. At this home-happiness season, I think of you constantly.
. . . Oh the boys, how they must enjoy Uncle Joe and the presents! You will see they get some from “Uncle Papa” too.
A Dr. Hayes is here as brigade surgeon. Scarcely any sick in our regiment, so Dr. Joe can feel easy about his absence.
Beautiful weather again. Only one bad day. The rest of the Thirtieth has come up. It is now the strongest regiment here. This half is better stuff too and had some service.
Captain Zimmerman takes this. I sent a chair and five hundred dollars, by Captain Sperry. Let Joe tell me what money you have received from me. It is all right, I suppose, but I would like to know. . . .
Affectionately, darling,
Mrs. Hayes.
R.
