August 13.—Still rain. My horse hitched to a tree on the brow of a hill very near my tent broke loose during the night, and, it is said, rolled down the steep hill and swam the river. This morning he was seen trotting about in high feather on the opposite side of the river. He was caught and brought back unhurt, to the surprise of all who saw the place he must have gone down. Our right wing has been sent for to return to Bulltown. Captains Drake and Woodward who are out guerrilla hunting are still absent and not heard from for twenty-four hours.—P. M. Still raining. Captains Drake and Woodward have returned. They caught two of the pickets of the guerrilla party they were after but failed in surprising them, owing to a boy who gave information of their coming. They found a few good Union men; the mass of the people most ignorant. [They] describe the country in the edge of Webster County as precipitous and difficult; the people timid but cunning. They also brought two other prisoners, men who have been in the secession army.
New Haven, August, ‘61.
The Second Connecticut Regiment returned on Monday and Willy and I rushed out to see them pass, poor, way-worn, tired fellows, as they were; and in their ranks we saw Dr. Bacon prance by, much to our surprise as well as pleasure. His family are all spending the summer in the country, and as the last duties of his place would detain him here for a few days, we offered him the shelter of our roof till they should be over, and so have had him to ourselves all the week—too tired and unwell to be as entertaining as usual, but still invaluable as a guide-book and interpreter to all the recent war movements. I am hoping that a large blue pill which he swallowed publicly last night may make him even more graphic and interesting. . . . He gave me a charming description of his calls on you and Georgy and what you said and did, and what you meant to say and do. Oh, girls, don’t I envy you, being so in the thick of everything!
. . . The reports from Lenox—(where Jenny and Harry Yardley, newly married, were settled) —are charming; the little house is just like a bower, transformed into such by all simple means and expedients. I am really getting appalled by the smartness of the girls. Dora and Lilly put carpets down themselves the other day in three rooms and did it as well as a professional. The last addition to the ornaments of the rooms was the pretty picture which Carry and Hatty brought from Rome for Jenny. Carry and Charley walked in upon them on Monday evening to their delight and surprise, having come up in search of rooms for the family—found at once quite near the Parsonage, and occupied by them to-day.
AUGUST 13TH. —The President sent to the department an interesting letter from Mr. Zollicoffer, in Tennessee, relating to the exposed condition of the country, and its capacities for defense.
August 13th.—Hon. Robert Barnwell says, “The Mercury’s influence began this opposition to Jeff Davis before he had time to do wrong. They were offended, not with him so much as with the man who was put into what they considered Barnwell Rhett’s rightful place. The latter had howled nullification and secession so long that when he found his ideas taken up by all the Confederate world, he felt he had a vested right to leadership.”
Jordan, Beauregard’s aide, still writes to Mr. Chesnut that the mortality among the raw troops in that camp is fearful. Everybody seems to be doing all they can. Think of the British sick and wounded away off in the Crimea. Our people are only a half-day’s journey by rail from Richmond. With a grateful heart I record the fact of reconciliation with the Wigfalls. They dined at the President’s yesterday and the little Wigfall girls stayed all night.
Seward is fêting the outsiders, the cousin of the Emperor, Napoleon III., and Russell, of the omnipotent London Times.
August 13.—The New Orleans Delta of to-day rejoices over the contemplated expulsion of all citizens of the United States “from the Confederated States.” The law, it states, is, and the fact is confirmed from other sources, that all owning citizenship to the Federal Government are to be banished from the Confederated States. The Delta says:
“We cannot afford to tolerate enemies in our midst, because, forsooth, they may have the discretion to keep silent and to bear no arms in their hands. The man of Massachusetts, or the man of Kentucky, living, and perhaps thriving in our midst, has no business at this time to be among us, if he allows a reasonable suspicion to exist that he is not also cordially with us.”
—A severe skirmish took place a few miles from Grafton, Va., on the Fairmount and Webster road. Information having been received that a regularly organized body of rebels, living in the county, were lodged within a few miles of Webster, General Kelly sent Captain Dayton, of Company A, Fourth Virginia Regiment, with fifty men, from Webster to disarm them. After scouting nearly twenty-four hours he came suddenly on them, and after an hour’s severe fighting, succeeded in killing twenty-one and putting the others to flight, without loss to his command. The rebels numbered 200, and were composed of the worst characters of the county, led on by Zack Cochrane, sheriff under Gov. Letcher.—Ohio Statesman, August 16.
—The banks of New York, Philadelphia, and Boston agreed to take fifty millions of the Government loan, they to be the sole recipients of the Treasury notes.
William Gray, Franklin Haven, and J. Amory Davis were chosen a committee by the Boston bank directors to confer with the committees of the New York and Philadelphia banks in regard to the Government loan. The meeting adopted the following instructions to the Committee:
“That the Committee be authorized to say to the gentlemen of the Committees from the New York and Philadelphia banks, that, in the judgment of the gentlemen here assembled, the banks and bankers of Boston and of the State of Massachusetts and its people are prepared, ready, willing, and determined to do all in their power, in view of their duty to themselves, their trusts and their country, to aid it in suppressing the present rebellion by furnishing men and money to the utmost extent of their ability, now, henceforth and forever.”— N. Y. Evening Post, August 14.
—General Pope, at St. Louis, Mo., issued a general order, establishing regulations for the navigation of the Missouri River.—(Doc. 181.)
Astoria, August 12th.
Dear Girls: If mother and the remaining three kept to the programme, they all left for Lenox on Saturday and are at last settled in their summer quarters, much to my relief. So long as they would not come to us, I think it was highly necessary for them to go somewhere, as the city grew hotter and smellier and more unbearable every day.
Knowing what New York is at this season, and inferring what Washington must be, I am sure you will consider my proposition reasonable when I beg that you will come on and freshen up a little here at Astoria “by the side of a river so clear.” . . . When you come Robert will sail you up to Riker’s Island, in order to make you feel more at home, where the Anderson Zouaves are encamped. We went up there the other day with some illustrated papers sent by Jane to the men, and were enthusiastically received by a company of bathers, who swam round the boat for whatever we had to offer, and whom we left seated on the rocks reading Frank Leslie, with not so much as a button or an epaulette on by way of dress.
MONDAY 12
Went down to the Pat office this morning and saw the Comr, could get nothing definite from him in reference to my restoration to the office. Business there is still dull. Few soldiers are seen in the streets now and none without a “pass.” The 27th Regt have rcd orders to cross the River into Virginia and go into Camp. Troops are accumulating here and also at Mannasses Junction. Another collision must soon take place, it will be a life struggle with both parties. Doct Barnes to Bkfst & tea.
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The three diary manuscript volumes, Washington during the Civil War: The Diary of Horatio Nelson Taft, 1861-1865, are available online at The Library of Congress.
August 12. Monday.—Showery all day. Sent to Clarksburg H. T. Martin. He will probably be sent to Columbus for safe keeping. I gave him a letter to my brother-in-law to insure him attention there in case he should need. It is impossible to avoid mistakes in these cases. Union men may make charges merely to gratify personal animosity, knowing that in the nature of things a full investigation is impossible.
During Monday night a squad of the Tenth Regiment returned from the Buckhannon road with the body of one of the wild men of the mountains found in this country. He followed their regiment, shooting at them from the hills. They took him in the Bulltown region. He wore neither hat nor shoes, was of gigantic size—weighing two hundred and thirty pounds; had long hooked toes, fitted to climb—a very monster. They probably killed him after taking him prisoner in cold blood—perhaps after a sort of trial. They say he was attempting to escape.
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WESTON, VIRGINIA, August 12, 1861.
DEAR UNCLE:—We are still getting on nicely. We have a good deal more excitement now than usual. Wagon and cattle trains and small parties are fired on by guerrillas from the hills on two of the roads leading from here. Dr. Joe has about eight or ten in charge who have been wounded in this way. Two only have been killed. None in our regiment. The men all laugh at “squirrel guns” and the wounds they make. Several would have been killed if shot in the same part by the conical balls of our military guns. The “deadly rifle” of olden times shoots too small a bullet, and is too short in its range; but as Cassio says, it is often “sufficient.” We send out parties who bring in prisoners— sometimes the right men, sometimes not. All this keeps up a stir. In a week or two we shall get up a regular system of scouring the country to get rid of these rascals. The Union men here hate and fear them more than our men.
The threatened invasion by Lee from eastern Virginia hangs fire. They will hardly venture in, unless they come in a few days, as we are daily getting stronger. I hope you are still getting better.
Good-bye,
R. B. HAYES.
S. BIRCHARD.
AUGUST 12TH.—There is trouble with Mr. Tochman, who was authorized to raise a regiment or so of foreigners in Louisiana. These troops were called (by whom?) the Polish Brigade, though, perhaps, not one hundred Polanders were on the muster-rolls; Major Tochman being styled General Tochman by “everybody,” he has intimated to the President his expectation of being commissioned a brigadier. The President, on his part, has promptly and emphatically, as is sometimes his wont, declared his purpose to give him no such commission. He never, for a moment, thought of making him more than a colonel. To this the major demurs, and furnishes a voluminous correspondence to prove that his claims for the position of brigadier-general had been recognized by the Secretary of War.
On returning from my ride next morning, I took up the Baltimore paper, and saw a paragraph announcing the death of an English officer at the station; it was the poor fellow whom I saw sitting at General Mansfield’s steps yesterday. The consul was absent on a short tour rendered necessary by the failure of his health consequent on the discharge of his duties. Finding the Legation were anxious to see due care taken of the poor fellow’s remains, I left for Baltimore at a quarter to three o’clock, and proceeded to inquire into the circumstances connected with his death. He had been struck down at the station by some cerebral attack, brought on by the heat and excitement; had been carried to the police station and placed upon a bench, from which he had fallen with his head downwards, and was found in that position, with life quite extinct, by a casual visitor. My astonishment may be conceived when I learned that not only had the Coroner’s inquest sat and returned its verdict, but that the man had absolutely been buried the same morning, and so my mission was over, and I could only report what had occurred to Washington. Little value indeed has human life in this new world, to which the old gives vital power so lavishly, that it is regarded as almost worthless. I have seen more “fuss” made over an old woman killed by a cab in London than there is over half a dozen deaths with suspicion of murder attached in New Orleans or New York.
