Fayetteville, Virginia, Saturday, 3. — Snow on the ground; not cold, but raw and disagreeable. Granting furloughs to four men from each company keeps me busy. A week or two ago the colonel sent a recommendation to appoint Sergeant Haven, of Company A, a captain, for services in connection with our naval expedition across New River. His services were probably important, but the jump over the heads of lieutenants is rather too big.
Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes
Fayetteville, Camp Union, November 30, 1861.
Dearest: — We are now engaged in getting winter quarters fixed comfortably. There are not houses enough to lodge all the men without too much crowding. We hope soon to have elbow-room. We ease it off a little by being very liberal with furloughs. We allow four men — “men of family preferred —” to go from each company for twenty days. As a consequence, there must be daily some of our men going through Cincinnati. The bearer will bring (probably) besides this letter, the accoutrements which go with Birt’s Mississippi rifle, and a couple of gold pieces, one for a present for you and one for Grandma Webb.
We are doing well. Today is bright and warm after a threedays storm of rain and sleet. I had a letter from Laura. You may send my vest; also “Lucile.” All sorts of reading matter finds grabbers, but I think of nothing except any stray Atlantic or Harper’s of late date. I do not wish to go home for some weeks, but if necessary, I can now go home at any time. I prefer that every other officer should go before I do. Dr. Joe is now acting as brigade surgeon, Colonel Scammon as brigadier, and I as colonel; Dr. Jim, as temporary surgeon of the Thirtieth.
All the people hereabouts are crowding in to take the oath of allegiance. A narrow-chested, weakly, poverty-stricken, ignorant set. I don’t wonder they refuse to meet our hardy fellows on fair terms. Captain Sperry says: “They are too ignorant to have good health.”
Love to “all the boys,” to Mother Webb, and ever so much for your own dear self.
Affectionately,
R.
Mrs. Hayes.
Fayetteville, Virginia, November 29, 1861.
Dear Laura: — Thanks for your letter. I hope I may think your health is improved, especially as you insist upon the pair of swollen cheeks. We are to stay here this winter. Our business for the next few weeks is building a couple of forts and getting housed fifteen hundred or two thousand men. We occupy a good brick bouse, papered and furnished, deserted by its secession proprietor on our approach. Our mess consists of Colonel Scammon, now commanding [the] Third Brigade, Colonel Ewing of [the] Thirtieth, Dr. Joe, and a half dozen other officers.
The village was a fine one — pretty gardens, fruit, flowers, and pleasant homes. All natives gone except three or four families of ladies — two very attractive young ladies among them, who are already turning the heads or exciting the gallantry of such “gay and festive” beaux as the doctor.
We are in no immediate danger here of anything except starvation, which you know is a slow death and gives ample time for reflection. All our supplies come from the head of navigation on the Kanawha over a road remarkable for the beauty and sublimity of its scenery, the depth of its mud, and the dizzy precipices which bound it on either side. On yesterday one of our bread waggons with driver and four horses missed the road four or six inches and landed (“landed” is not so descriptive of the fact as lit) in the top of a tree ninety feet high after a fall of about seventy feet. The miracle is that the driver is here to explained that one of his leaders hawed when he ought to have geed.
We are now encouraging trains of pack mules. They do well among the scenery, but unfortunately part of the route is a Serbonian Bog where armies whole might sink if they haven’t, and the poor mules have a time of it. The distance luckily to navigable water is only sixteen to twenty miles. If, however, the water gets low, the distance will increase thirty to forty miles, and if it freezes — why, then we shall all be looking for the next thaw for victuals.
We are to have a telegraph line to the world done tomorrow, and a daily mail subject to the obstacles aforesaid, so we can send you dispatches showing exactly how our starvation progresses from day to day.
On the whole, I rather like the prospect. We are most comfortably housed, and shall no doubt have a pretty jolly winter. There will be a few weeks of busy work getting our forts ready, etc., etc. After that I can no doubt come home and visit you all for a brief season.
So the nice young lieutenant is a Washington. Alas! that so good a name should sink so low.
I am interrupted constantly. Good-bye. Love to all. Can’t write often. Send this to Lucy.
Affectionately, your uncle,
Ruddy.
Miss Laura Platt.
Fayetteville, Virginia, November 29, 1861.
Dear Uncle: — We have just got our orders for the winter. We are to stay here, build a little fort or two, keep here fifteen hundred men or so — sixty horsemen, a battery of four or six small cannon, etc., etc. We shall live in comfortable houses. The telegraph will be finished here in a day or two. We shall have a daily mail to the head of navigation — sixteen miles down the Kanawha. On the whole a better prospect than I expected in western Virginia. Our colonel will command. I am consequently in command of the Twenty-third Regiment. This is the fair side. The other side is, sixteen miles of the sublimest scenery to travel over. We get supplies chiefly, and soon will wholly, by pack mules. We have a waggon in a tree top ninety feet high. If a mule slips, good-bye mule! This is over the “scenery,” and where there is no scenery, the mud would appal an old-time Black Swamp stage-driver. If rations or forage give out, this is not a promising route, but then we can, if forced, march the sixteen miles in one day — we have done it — and take the mouths to the food if the food can’t be carried to the mouths.
If the river gets very low, as it sometimes does, the head of navigation will move thirty or forty miles further off; and if it freezes, as it does once in six or eight years, there will be no navigation, and then there will be fifteen hundred souls hereabouts anxiously looking for a thaw.
You now have the whole thing. I rather like it. I wish you were in health. It would be jolly for you to come up and play chess with the colonel and see things. As soon as we are in order, say four or five weeks, I can come home as well as not and stay a short time. . . .
Sincerely,
R. B. Hayes.
S. Birchard.
Fayetteville, Virginia, Thursday, 28. — Thanksgiving at home. Dear boys and wife! I hope they are enjoying a happy dinner at home. Here it is raining and gloomy. We do not yet know where we are to winter; men are growing uneasy and dissatisfied. I hope we shall soon know; and if we are to stay here I think we can soon get into good case again. — Decided that we are to stay here for the winter. Wrote to Uncle and Laura humorous letters — attempts — describing our prospects here. Two small redoubts to be built soon. Quarters to be prepared. Rain, mud, and cold to be conquered; drilling to be done, etc., etc.
Fayetteville, Virginia, November 27, 1861.
Dearest: — I sent you a rifle for Birch. It was loaded, as I learn. The lieutenant promised to take the load out. If he has forgotten it, have our neighbor of all work, corner of Longworth and Wood, take out the load before Birch plays with or handles it. You may send my vest by anybody coming direct to my regiment. We expect to move two or three days nearer to you the last of this week. The point is not yet known — perhaps Cannelton or Charleston on the Kanawha. I have got a “contraband,” a bright fellow who came through the mountains a hundred miles, hiding daytime and travelling nights to get to us. Daniel Husk is his name, His story is a romantic one, if true, as it probably is.
I would have Mr. Stephenson invest in Government 7 3/10 per cent five hundred or six hundred dollars. I shall send you three hundred or four hundred dollars more, as soon as the paymaster comes again. . . . Colonel Scammon is absent. I command the regiment and the post, so I am busy. Excuse brevity, therefore. Love to the boys.
Affectionately,
R.
Mrs. Hayes.
Fayetteville (Camp Union), Virginia, November 27. Wednesday.— We left all baggage on the morning of the 13th early, except what the men could carry, and started down to Gauley to pursue Floyd or rather to attack him. My memo[randa] are as follows: —
- November 13
- November 14, Thursday
- November 15. Friday
- Saturday, November 16.
- November 17. Sunday
- Monday, 18.
- Tuesday, 19.
- Wednesday, 20.
- Thursday, 21.
- Friday, 22.
- Saturday, 23.
- Sunday, 24.
_______
Each of the individual “memos” appeared after the entry for November 27. In this presentation, though, since they are dated, they are provided on those dates, with links here to those posts.
Camp Union, Fayetteville, Virginia,
November 25, 1861.
Dear Mother: — I have just read your letter written at Delaware, and am glad to know you are so happy with Arcena and the other kind friends. You may feel relieved of the anxiety you have had about me.
After several days of severe marching, camping on the ground without tents, once in the rain and once on the snow, we have returned from a fruitless chase after Floyd’s Rebel army, and are now comfortably housed in the deserted dwellings of a beautiful village. We have no reports of any enemy near us and are preparing for winter. We should quarter here if the roads to the head of navigation would allow. As it is we shall probably go to a steamboat landing on the Kanawha. Snow is now three or four inches deep and still falling. We are on high ground — perhaps a thousand feet above the Kanawha River — and twelve miles from Gauley Mountain.
Our troops are very healthy. We have here in my regiment six hundred and sixty-two men of whom only three are seriously ill. Perhaps fifteen others are complaining so as to be excused from guard duty. The fever which took down so many of our men has almost disappeared. . . .
This is a rugged mountain region, with large rushing rivers of pure clear water (we drink it at Cincinnati polluted by the Olentangy and Scioto) and full of the grandest scenery I have ever beheld. I rode yesterday over Cotton Hill and along New River a distance of thirty miles. I was alone most of the day, and could enjoy scenes made still wilder by the wintry storm.
We do not yet hear of any murders by bushwhackers in this part of Virginia, and can go where we choose without apprehension of danger. We meet very few men. The poor women excite our sympathy constantly. A great share of the calamities of war fall on the women. I see women unused to hard labor gathering corn to keep starvation from the door. I am now in command of the post here, and a large part of my time is occupied in hearing tales of distress and trying to soften the ills the armies have brought into this country. Fortunately a very small amount of salt, sugar, coffee, rice, and bacon goes a great ways where all these things are luxuries no longer procurable in the ordinary way. We try to pay for the mischief we do in destroying corn, hay, etc., etc., in this way.
We are well supplied with everything. But clothes are worn out, lost, etc., very rapidly in these rough marches. People disposed to give can’t go amiss in sending shoes, boots, stockings, thick shirts and drawers, mittens or gloves, and blankets. Other knickknacks are of small account.
Give my love to Arcena, Sophia, and to Mrs. Kilbourn.
Affectionately,
R. B. Hayes.
Sunday, 24. — Rode in rain and snow, chiefly snow, down to Gauley over Kanawha and back to Fayetteville; a hard ride in such a day and alone, too. How I enjoy these rides, this scenery, and all! Saw a teamster with a spike team (three horses) stalled; got on to his leader and tried to help through; gave it up; took a pair of his socks — he had a load.
Saturday, 23. — Rode up to Captain Mack’s (Regular-army artillery officer) ten miles up N[ew River] and near our old Camp Ewing. Business: To appraise under order from General Rosecrans damage done citizens by our men. Board consisted of Colonel McCook, self, and Captain Mack. Met McCook mending road. [He] said he would sign what we should agree to. Did the work and slept with Captain Mack in his new Sibley tent, warmed by a stove. A good institution, if [tent is] floored, for winter.
