Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes

Monday, 26. — A dull, foggy day; snow thawing rapidly. Savannah captured by Sherman on the 21st, Hardee making a hasty retreat across the river to South Carolina. Some important captures. Salute of one hundred guns fired. We expect to go to New Creek soon.

Sunday, 25. — A pleasant and “merry Christmas.” A good dinner. Captain Nye, Lieutenants Turner and Stanley, Dr. Webb, Majors Carey, Twenty-third, and McKown, Thirteenth. Wine, oysters, turkey, etc., etc. Read through [General Winfield] Scott’s “Autobiography.” Weak and vain beyond compare.

Saturday, 24. — A fine day; a pleasant chatty Christmas eve with the gentlemen of my staff in the hospital tent of the adjutant: viz., Captain Nye (R. L.), Captain Delay, Lieutenants Turner and Stanley — all of Thirty-sixth O. V. I. and good men.

Friday, 23. — A clear, cold, fine winter day. Began to move into a house; changed back. Visited Mr. Joseph Jolliffe, the only man who voted for Lincoln in 1860! A brother of Mr. Jolliffe of Cincinnati. Read with great pleasure the story of Thomas’ victories and Sherman’s great march.

Thursday, December 22, 1864. — Last night the worst of my experience. A new camp; slight shelter; very cold; tent smoky. In all respects we are badly fixed. Issue a ration of whiskey to all.

Camp at Stephenson’s Depot, Virginia,
December 20, 1864.

Dear Uncle: — We broke camp at Camp Russell yesterday at early daylight and marched to this place on the railroad from Harpers Ferry towards Winchester. It rained, snowed, “blew, and friz” again. Awful mud to march in and still worse to camp in. But today it is cold and none of us got sick, so far as I know. Our First Division took cars to join Grant. It is said we shall follow in a day or two. This is not certain, but I shall not be surprised if it is true. I prefer not to go, and yet one feels that it is almost necessary to be present at the taking of Richmond. I am content, however, to go. I believe in pushing the enemy all winter if possible. Now that we have a decided advantage is the time to crowd them. Things look as if that were to be the policy.

I like the new call for troops. What good fortune we are having. If Sherman takes Savannah and then moves north, this winter will be the severest by far that our Rebel friends have had.

I received today your letter of the 14th enclosing Uncle Austin’s about the sad fate of Sardis. I will do what I can to get further information, but we are no longer with the Nineteenth Corps and may not again see them.

I am sorry to hear you have a severe cold. I am getting more nervous when I hear of your taking cold. Don’t try to visit Lucy or anybody else in the winter.

I am afraid I shall not get to visit you this winter.

Sincerely,

R. B. Hayes.

P. S. — There is a short but tolerably fair account of the battle of Winchester in Harper’s Monthly of January. It is written by somebody in the Nineteenth Corps. You will hardly read it with such emotion as I do. The writer calls our force “the Eighth Corps.” When you read on the 199th page his account of our battle-yell as we advanced, and of the Rebel musketry which met it, you will remember that I led the advance brigade of the advance division, and that perhaps the happiest moment of my life was then, when I saw that our line didn’t break and that the enemy’s did.

23d. — It is pretty certain [that] we do not go to Grant; probably in a week or two to Cumberland or West Virginia.

S. Birchard.

Camp Russell, Virginia, December 18, 1864.
Sunday morning before breakfast.

Dear Mother: — We have as yet received no orders as to winter quarters. I begin to suspect I shall not get home during the holidays.

We are feeling very happy over the good news from the other armies. Salutes were fired yesterday and the day before in all our camps in honor of General Thomas’ victory at Nashville.

We are living on the fat of the land now. The sutlers are now again allowed to come to the front and they bring all manner of eatables, wholesome and otherwise, but chiefly otherwise.

I wish you could visit our camps. I know what you would exclaim on coming into my quarters, “Why, Rutherford, how comfortably you are fixed. I should like to live with you myself.” I am getting books and reading matter of all sorts against rainy weather. Unless the weather is atrocious, I take a ride daily of a couple of hours or more. We yesterday had an inspection of my brigade. The Twenty-third was in the best condition. Notwithstanding our heavy losses, we have managed to get so many new men during the summer that the regiment is about as large as it was in the spring. It is larger than it was at this time last year.

A large number of men and officers who fell into Rebel hands, wounded, are now coming back, having been exchanged. They are all happy to be back and full of determination to fight it out.

I have been made a brigadier-general, but it is not yet officially announced. It was on the recommendation of Generals Crook and Sheridan.

Affectionately, your son,

R.

Mrs. Sophia Hayes.

Saturday, 17. — An inspection of First Brigade. [The] Twenty-third looked well, but alas! very few of the old men. I shed tears as I left the line. It never looked better. Abbott, wounded at Cloyd’s Mountain and a prisoner for months, joined us today. General Thomas completed his victory at Nashville. One hundred guns fired here. General Crook fears that one division will go to Grant.

Camp Russell, December 17, 1864.

My Darling: — No certainty about things yet. We fired fifty guns yesterday and one hundred more today over General Thomas’ great victories. How happy our men are. We had an inspection today of the brigade. The Twenty-third was pronounced the crack regiment in appearance, etc. It looks very finely — as large as you used to see it at Camp White, but so changed in officers and men. A great many new ones at Camp White; then three hundred of the Twelfth in July; and three hundred conscripts, volunteers, and substitutes since. I could see only six to ten in a company of the old men. They all smiled as I rode by. But as I passed away I couldn’t help dropping a few natural tears. I felt as I did when I saw them mustered in at Camp Chase.

Captain Abbott joined us today— a prisoner since Cloyd’s Mountain. He is very happy to be back. He looks in good health, his arm not perfectly well.

Lieutenant McBride, the brave fellow who took Lieutenant-Colonel Edgar and forty-two others at Winchester, is here again. Sweet and Snyder are back. Hastings is in capital spirits; says he will be well long before next spring campaign. Heiliger writes me that he wants to get a commission in Hancock’s Veterans.

The band is playing its finest tonight. It contains all the old members and some good additions.

I have written the boys. I asked them how they would like to call the little soldier George Crook; they don’t reply. — Love to all.

Affectionately ever,

R.

Mrs. Hayes.