Monday, 9th.—J. L. Thomas and I set out from Mr. Lathan’s to hunt our command. After a ride of about twenty-four miles, we found our Company at Monroe, in Overton County, six or eight miles north-east of Livingston, on their way to Knoxville. The other two companies, B and C, were beyond Livingston.
Brother Ben, who had taken brother Will home from Camp Schuyler, rejoined the company. It was about this time that Captain Payne left the battalion, and Duncan was made Captain of Company D.
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Cairo, September 9, 1861
The refreshments and dry goods from home arrived Saturday. We were at Paducah then and they were taken care of by two or three of the lame and halt, that were not in traveling order and were left behind. We returned this morning and after acknowledging the excellence, profusion, variety, gorgeousness, and confiscarity of your benevolent appropriation to our temporal wants, I will particularize by saying that you needn’t worry about your picture, as it is in my possession; that the cakes are both numerous and excellent, that the pickles are prodigious in quantity, beautiful in quality and remarkably acceptable. That the butter and cheese are non ad com valorum. The tobacco and Hostetter, the boys say, are very fine. To Mrs. Dewey and Mrs. Heald we all return thanks and send our kind respects and love. We have sent a share of the eatables to the Canton boys of the 17th, which is again encamped near us; this time on the Kentucky shore. They are hard at work to-day cutting down trees, clearing away for a camp ground. I have seen none of them yet. We had the nicest little trip to Paducah, that ever soldiers had. We have just received orders to get ready to start in five minutes.
Time extended a little. We had 1,500 troops in Paducah, Ky., and received information that they would be attacked Saturday, so Friday night 350 of us were sent up as an advance.—Now we go.
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Sept. 9th. Enlisted. At home till Sept. 14th. Splendid time.
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Monday, 9.—Marched over Powell Mountain and camped eight miles from Summersville. Enemy near us; a battle to come soon.
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SEPTEMBER 9TH.—Matters in statu quo, and Major Tyler still acting chief of the bureau.
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CAMDEN, S. C, September 9, 1861.—Home again at Mulberry, the fever in full possession of me. My sister, Kate, is my ideal woman, the most agreeable person I know in the world, with her soft, low, and sweet voice, her graceful, gracious ways, and her glorious gray eyes, that I looked into so often as we confided our very souls to each other.
God bless old Betsey’s yellow face! She is a nurse in a thousand, and would do anything for “Mars Jeems’ wife.” My small ailments in all this comfort set me mourning over the dead and dying soldiers I saw in Virginia. How feeble my compassion proves, after all.
I handed the old Colonel a letter from his son in the army. He said, as he folded up the missive from the seat of war, “With this war we may die out. Your husband is the last—of my family.” He means that my husband is his only living son; his grandsons are in the army, and they, too, may be killed—even Johnny, the gallant and gay, may not be bullet-proof. No child have I.
Now this old man of ninety years was born when it was not the fashion for a gentleman to be a saint, and being lord of all he surveyed for so many years, irresponsible, in the center of his huge domain, it is wonderful he was not a greater tyrant—the softening influence of that angel wife, no doubt. Saint or sinner, he understands the world about him—au fond.
Have had a violent attack of something wrong about my heart. It stopped beating, then it took to trembling, creaking and thumping like a Mississippi high-pressure steamboat, and the noise in my ears was more like an ammunition wagon rattling over the stones in Richmond. That was yesterday, and yet I am alive. That kind of thing makes one feel very mortal.
Russell writes how disappointed Prince Jerome Napoleon was with the appearance of our troops, and “he did not like Beauregard at all.” Well! I give Bogar up to him. But how a man can find fault with our soldiers, as I have seen them individually and collectively in Charleston, Richmond, and everywhere—that beats me.
The British are the most conceited nation in the world, the most self-sufficient, self-satisfied, and arrogant. But each individual man does not blow his own penny whistle; they brag wholesale. Wellington—he certainly left it for others to sound his praises—though Mr. Binney thought the statue of Napoleon at the entrance of Apsley House was a little like “‘Who killed Cock Robin?’ ‘I, said the sparrow, with my bow and arrow.'” But then it is so pleasant to hear them when it is a lump sum of praise, with no private crowing—praise of Trafalgar, Waterloo, the Scots Greys.
Fighting this and fighting that, with their crack corps stirs the blood and every heart responds—three times three! Hurrah!
But our people feel that they must send forth their own reported prowess: with an, “I did this and I did that.” I know they did it; but I hang my head.
In those Tarleton Memoirs, in Lee’s Memoirs, in Moultrie’s, and in Lord Rawdon’s letters, self is never brought to the front. I have been reading them over and admire their modesty and good taste as much as their courage and cleverness. That kind of British eloquence takes me. It is not, “Soldats! marchons, gloire! ” Not a bit of it; but, “Now, my lads, stand firm!” and, “Now up, and let them have it!”
Our name has not gone out of print. To-day, the Examiner, as usual, pitches into the President. It thinks Toombs, Cobb, Slidell, Lamar, or Chesnut would have been far better in the office. There is considerable choice in that lot. Five men more utterly dissimilar were never named in the same paragraph.
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September 9.—The Richmond Examiner of this day says: “A few days ago Col. Albert Rust, commanding one of the regiments from Arkansas, and now stationed at Monterey, proposed to execute a most daring feat, which, but for untoward circumstances, would doubtless have proved successful and stamped him a hero. Calling for volunteers for his enterprise, he accepted the services of eleven hundred men, and with two days’ rations, and stripped of all superfluous clothing and accoutrements, he took a circuitous trail, intending and expecting it to bring him out in the rear of the enemy at Cheat Mountain. His plan was, so soon as they hove in sight of their camps, to fire but one round from their guns and then to close with the foe and to use the bayonet and bowie-knife. General Jackson was to cooperate with him by menacing and attacking the enemy in front so soon as Rust should develop his arrival in the rear by firing. Unfortunately for the success of the enterprise, the trail had not been previously explored, and, instead of carrying Col. Rust to the enemy’s camp, took him six miles behind it, in a direction which rendered it inaccessible, leaving them no other resources but to execute an immediate retreat. So confidently was success counted on that Gen. Jackson drove in the enemy’s pickets, and waited nearly half a day for the signal of Rust’s arrival in the rear to commence the attack in front.
—This morning a serious revolt took place among the New York Rifles, near the camp at Willett’s Point. An entire company, as far as it had been made up, attempted to desert en masse, at the instigation of Captain Cresto, their commander, in order to join another regiment in New York. They were stopped by a special patrol en route, and ordered to return to the camp, and on refusing they were fired upon by the patrol. Two men were killed on the spot and five were severely wounded. Captain Oresto and several of the men were arrested, and the affair was investigated.—N. Y. Herald, September 11.
—In the Senate of Kentucky, Mr. Whitaker introduced a series of resolutions declaring that the peace and neutrality of the State had been wantonly violated by the so-called Southern Confederacy, and calling upon the people to rise and repel the lawless invaders. Governor Magoffin transmitted to the Senate despatches from the confederate General Polk, in which he proposed that the national and “confederate” forces should be simultaneously withdrawn from Kentucky, and that both parties stipulate to observe the neutrality of the State.—(Doc. 40.)
—The Richmond Enquirer of this date has the following: General A. Sydney Johnston has, as we anticipated several days since, been assigned to the Department of the West, and put in immediate command of the operations now in progress on the Upper Mississippi. A better selection for so important a command could not have been made.
—Dr. Robert Ogden Doremus, the celebrated chemist of New York, has made an invention that promises remarkable results in the use of gunpowder. It is made into the form of a paste and is affixed to the Minié ball and becomes hard as rock, so that it can be thrown any distance and not break. The powder is made in the form of a cannon ball, and can be carried in any form that a cannon ball can be. It is also made impervious to water. Experiments have been made, and the matter satisfactorily tested at West Point. A great saving is made in the quantity of powder used, as none is wasted, and the whole is as cheap as common powder.
—This evening as a Government steamer was conveying prisoners from Lexington, Missouri, to Fort Leavenworth, she broke her rudder and was obliged to land, when the boat was seized by a body of secessionists, the prisoners liberated, and forty Federal soldiers captured. —Baltimore American, September 18.
—An immense Union war meeting was held in Faneuil Hall at Boston, Mass., this evening. The “Old Cradle of Liberty” was packed, and every arena leading to it. Thousands were unable to gain admittance to the Hall. Hon. B. F. Thomas presided, and was assisted by the Mayors of numerous cities. All parties were represented.
The crowd was so immense on the outside that several meetings were organized. Judge Lord addressed the gathering in the Hall in a patriotic strain, saying that all the hopes of humanity, civilization, and Christianity were bound up in the present contest. Resolutions in support of the policy of the National Government were offered by William C. Williamson, and enthusiastically adopted. Letters from Robert C. Wintrop, General Butler, and others were also read. Both in the Hall and the vast outside gathering the most enthusiastic patriotism was evinced by the dense masses. Such a demonstration Massachusetts has not seen since the days of the Revolution.—(Doc. 41.)
—Another fiendish attempt to destroy the lives of the National soldiers was made a day or two since on the North Missouri Railroad. The timbers of a bridge near Sturgeon were partially burned, in expectation that a train laden with troops would be precipitated into the creek below, but the design of the villains being known, the train stopped at Mexico, and the troops encamped at that place, where they remained until the bridge was repaired.—Louisville Journal, September 13.
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(A little late on getting this new diarist started here – life’s other distractions took my attention away and may continue to do so over the next few weeks.
–Mike.)
Milford, Mass., Sept. 6, 1861.
Pursuant to a call from President Lincoln for more troops in suppression of the great rebellion, a regiment is now being recruited in the city of Worcester for that service, and a company is being recruited here for that regiment. Believing that it is too soon to divide the estate, and that too many different administrations running at the same time might run amuck, and believing I should never feel quite satisfied with myself if I do not go, and believing with President Jackson, that the Union must and shall be preserved, I have this day enlisted in the company now being raised here. It would be useless for me to claim that I have enlisted from purely patriotic motives, as no one would believe it; and surely none would believe that I would enlist for the plain thirteen dollars a month. So I may as well call it that I have enlisted partly from a love of adventure; for the other part, people are at liberty to draw their own inferences.
The formation of this company was suggested by Mr. George Draper, a patriotic and public spirited citizen of the town, who has given liberally of his means for its success; his son also enlisting in the company. It has also received the aid and patronage of several other patriotic citizens of the town.
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Sunday, 8th—We had preaching in camp three times today, morning, afternoon and evening. Quite a number from the city came out to camp to attend the services. The weather was delightful.
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Sept. 8th.—Rode over to Arlington House. Went round by Aqueduct Bridge, Georgetown, and out across Chain Bridge to Brigadier Smith’s head-quarters, which are established in a comfortable house belonging to a Secessionist farmer. The General belongs to the regular army, and, if one can judge from externals, is a good officer. A libation of Bourbon and water was poured out to friendship, and we rode out with Captain Poe, of the Topographical Engineers, a hard-working, eager fellow, to examine the trench which the men were engaged in throwing up to defend the position they have just occupied on some high knolls, now cleared of wood, and overlooking ravines which stretch towards Falls Church and Vienna. Everything about the camp looked like fighting: Napoleon guns planted on the road; Griffin’s battery in a field near at hand; mountain howitzers unlimbered; strong pickets and main-guards; the five thousand men all kept close to their camps, and two regiments, in spite of McClellan’s order, engaged on the trenches, which were already mounted with field-guns. General Smith, like most officers, is a Democrat and strong anti-Abolitionist, and it is not too much to suppose he would fight any rather than Virginians. As we were riding about, it got out among the men that I was present, and I was regarded with no small curiosity, staring, and some angry looks. The men do not know what to make of it when they see their officers in the company of one whom they are reading about in the papers as the most &c, &c, the world ever saw. And, indeed, I know well enough, so great is their passion and so easily are they misled, that without such safeguard the men would in all probability carry out the suggestions of one of their particular guides, who has undergone so many cuffings that he rather likes them. Am I not the cause of the disaster at Bull’s Run?
Going home, I met Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln in their new open carriage. The President was not so good-humored, nor Mrs. Lincoln so affable, in their return to my salutation as usual. My unpopularity is certainly spreading upwards and downwards at the same time, and all because I could not turn the battle of Bull’s Run into a Federal victory, because I would not pander to the vanity of the people, and, least of all, because I will not bow my knee to the degraded creatures who have made the very name of a free press odious to honourable men. Many of the most foul-mouthed and rabid of the men who revile me because I have said the Union as it was never can be restored, are as fully satisfied of the truth of that statement as I am. They have written far severer things of their army than I have ever done. They have slandered their soldiers and their officers as I have never done. They have fed the worst passions of a morbid democracy, till it can neither see nor hear; but they shall never have the satisfaction of either driving me from my post or inducing me to deviate a hair’s-breadth from the course I have resolved to pursue, as I have done before in other cases —greater and graver, as far as I was concerned, than this.
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