November 14, 1864.
Troops are coming in to-day on all the roads. ‘Tis said that we will be ready to move to-morrow. So be it. The cracker line is cut now and we don’t want to lie still eating up our precious rations. I was again over the old position we occupied before Atlanta. I would like to be your guide over that ground some day. Tremendous fires in Atlanta to-day.
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Monday, November 14. — The men received orders this morning to get ready to leave by 10 o’clock. All of them were sent off at that hour. The yard has seemed deserted all day. Captain Martin, Assistant Adjutant-General of the stockade, was here to-day. Had a box for Colonel Buffum. Maria brought us a chicken pie, for which we paid $30.
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Monday, 14th—This morning was cool and pleasant. We started early and marched five miles, going into camp a mile south of Atlanta. We tore up the railroad tracks through Atlanta and burned all the public buildings. There was a fine large station here, and a splendid engine house, but both were burned. Very few citizens are left in Atlanta. The Fourteenth, Fifteenth, Seventeenth and Twentieth Army Corps are in bivouac in the vicinity of Atlanta. They are concentrating here for the purpose of making a grand raid down South. We are to take forty days’ rations with us, consisting of hardtack, coffee, sugar, salt and pepper, candles and soap, but we are to forage for meat as we march through the country. All is quiet.
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Monday, November 14. — Cold, windy day. This morning the First Brigade returned from Martinsburg. I assumed command again and camped them pleasantly in a wood on the extreme left. Slept cold.
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Henry Adams, private secretary of the US Minister to the UK, to his brother, Charles.
London, November 11, 1864
Meanwhile my hopes of our escaping from England soon are not so buoyant as they, perhaps unreasonably, once were. I feel a feeling that your father may fail us at the pinch. Should he be pressed to stay, I fear he will do so, and I am almost convinced that he will either remain here or go into the Cabinet. This is the only alternative I can see, and I dread either almost equally. Nevertheless I wait what may turn up to adapt my plan of operations accordingly.
The decision must soon be made. We shall next week know the result of the election. We drank to Abraham’s success at dinner last Tuesday. If all goes well, another month will see us settled here for another year, I suppose, or preparing to break up between December and April. This is however a critical time. Although we have news down to the 2d, I would be glad to know that our corner was safely turned, and do not therefore venture to build much on the future. There are some ugly diplomatic questions also that have chosen just this time to come up, and I dread their influence on us.
We are as usual void of news except from the war. I do not comprehend Grant’s moves. They do not seem to be made in earnest. He has the air of playing with Lee, and Lee seems to think so, to judge from Mr. Lawley’s last epistle to the Times. I have been expecting for a long time a movement of the combined army across the Appomattox from City Point, on the rear of Petersburg and onto Lee’s flank or rear, as it may be. What is the use of Lee’s extended lines, if we always attack the same points? Nevertheless, the election once over, I am willing to wait patiently if necessary; for the cautious game is probably now our sure play. . . .
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Fort Hayes, Near Petersburg, Va., Nov. 14, 1864
Dear Family:
Yours of the 6th inst arrived in due time. I have been waiting anxiously to hear from Jere, as he promised to write as soon as he got home. The process of getting mustered out should receive particular attention. I shall forward today his descriptive list, to Major Clark, Boston, Mass. I would advise Jerry to report without delay, after the receipt of this, and do the best he can, for his furlough and term of service expire at the same time.
The weather has been changeable for the past fortnight. At first it was exceedingly cold, then we began to have the beautiful indian summer. The days were perfectly delightful and the nights equally so; but now it seems as if cold winter had fairly set in, but we are fully prepared for him, with a large fire place and a comfortable sheebang. There have been quite a number of promotions in the regt.; doubtless you have read of them in the papers. There was a great deal of surprise expressed when the commissions came, for some have received them that we supposed stood no chance at all; two of them, B ――and A――n. have been in only one fight (the first) and have played ever since. The quarter master Sergt. was promoted, which left a vacancy there. I was asked for; but the Major refused to let me go, on the grounds that he wanted me here, to do the writing for the companies B and C. I think they are not using me exactly right; but still I shall not complain; but one thing is, he is discouraging good behavior and a soldierly bearing; but it shall not serve to move me from a straight and forward course. No one has gone as yet, and they know of no one to send. So perhaps I shall get it yet; but I shall not expect it. Promotions have been made in the Regiment by the Gov. without the sanction of the Regt. Commander. I am not particularly desirous of another lift, but if you think best and should some day have a chance to speak to some influential man, it would have a great weight in the matter. I understand now that names have been forwarded to the Gov. for promotion; but ignorant who they are. Genl. Hancock has tried to get this Corps to the rear in camp, but was unsuccessful. I for one was glad of it.
Old Fort days seem like home. Love to all.
L. Bradley, Jr.
[He was made quartermaster-sergeant.—Ed.]
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November 14th.—Clear and cold.
Lincoln is re-elected, and has called for a million of men! This makes many of our croaking people despondent; others think it only a game of brag.
I saw the President to-day in earnest conversation with several members of Congress, standing in the street. It is not often he descends from his office to this mode of conference.
Some one of the family intimating that stains of blood were on my undershirts (second hand), I was amused to see Mrs. J. lifting them with the tongs. They have been thoroughly washed, and prove to be a first-rate article. I am proud of them, for they are truly comfortable garments.
Gen. Forrest is doing wonders in Tennessee, as the appended dispatch from Gen. Beauregard shows:
“Tuscumbia, Ala., Nov. 8th, 1804.
“Gen. S. Cooper, A. and I. General.
“Gen. Forrest reports on the 5th instant that he was then engaged fighting the enemy at Johnsonville, having already destroyed four gun boats, of eight guns each, fourteen steamers, and twenty barges, with a large quantity of quartermaster and commissary stores, on the landing and in warehouses, estimated at between seventy-five and one hundred thousand tons. Six gun-boats were then approaching, which he hoped to capture or destroy.
“G. T. Beauregard.”
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Nashville, Tenn., Monday, Nov. 14. Morning found us on a sidetrack in Nashville, which we reached 4 A. M. Most of the boys were soon off in town, and as every one’s pockets were well filled, the morning was spent feeding at saloons, restaurants, etc., too many indulging too freely in the debasing cup. As we expected to unload soon, I did not leave till after dinner, when I with Griff strolled through town, seeing sights. Nashville is a busy business mart. Mounted the dome of the state capitol. The scene from it is most picturesque, nearly three hundred feet above the silverlike Cumberland, which winds nearly around the city. This is spread over a large tract of ground, five miles long from north to south.
4 P. M. We were drawn up to a platform and by night we were unloaded. Made our beds down as best we could, and retired neath a frowning sky which I fear will drench us before morning.
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14th. Monday. Lay in camp. Wrote home, to Sarah and Ella Clark.
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November 13.—The “military situation” seems very much the same. Some cheering intimations from Georgia. Hood has made movements on Sherman’s flank, and Forrest upon his rear, which it is thought promise most valuable results, but nothing final has been yet accomplished, and we may be too sanguine.
General Price is still successful in Missouri.
In the Valley of Virginia an immense amount of private property has been destroyed. Sheridan, glorying in his shame, boasts of, and probably magnifies, what has been done in that way. He telegraphs to Grant that he has burned 2,000 barns. The Lord shorten his dreadful work, and have mercy upon the sufferers!
Nothing new about Richmond. A few days ago the enemy made several attempts to advance upon the Darbytown road, and were handsomely repulsed. The firing of cannon is so common a sound that it is rather remarkable when we do not hear it.
Mr. —— has been telling us of some other interesting cases in his hospital; among them, that of Captain Brown, of North Carolina, has awakened our sympathies. He came into the hospital bright and cheerful, with every appearance of speedy recovery. He talked a great deal of his wife and six children at home, one of whom he had never seen. Knowing that his wife would be sick, he had obtained a furlough, and made arrangements to go home, but the recent battles coming on, he would not leave his post. Through many a hard-fought action God had kept him unharmed; he had never been touched by a solitary weapon, until he began to feel that there was not the slightest danger to him, even amid the harvest of death. He wrote that he should be at home as soon as this fight was over; but it was not to be so, and he soon came into the hospital severely wounded. As he lay upon his bed of suffering, the image of his dear wife in her sickness and sorrow, and then with her new-born infant, seemed constantly before him. “I intended to be there,” he would say dreamily; “I made all my arrangements to be there; I know she wants me; she wrote to me to come to her; oh, I wish I was there, but now I can’t go, but I hope I did right; I hope it is all right.” A letter from her, speaking of herself and infant as doing well relieved his anxiety, and he tried to bear the disappointment with patience, still hoping soon to be at home. God, however, had ordered it otherwise. The word had gone forth, “He shall not return to his house, neither shall his place know him any more.” Gangrene appeared, and it was melancholy to see his strength giving way, his hopes fading, and death coming steadily on. He was a professor of religion, and Mr. —— says he was always ready to hear the word of God, and, though anxious to live, yet he put himself into the Lord’s hand, with humble faith and hope, such as may give his friends assurance that death was gain to him.
The war news seems encouraging. Many persons are very despondent, but I do not feel so—perhaps I do not understand the military signs. Our men below Richmond have certainly had many successes of late. Sheridan, instead of capturing Lynchburg, as he promised, is retreating down the Valley. In the South, the army of Tennessee is in Sherman’s rear, and Forrest still carries every thing before him. General Price seems to be doing well in Missouri; Arkansas and Texas seem to be all right. Kentucky, too, (poor Kentucky!) seems more hopeful. Then why should we despond? Maryland, alas for Maryland! the tyrant’s heel appears too heavy for her, and we grievously fear that the prospect of her union with the South is rapidly passing away. If we must give her up, it will not be without sorrow and mortification. We shall mournfully bewail her dishonour and shame. If her noble sons who have come to the South must return, they will take with them our gratitude and admiration for their gallant bearing in many a hard-fought battle. Readily will we receive those who choose to remain among us; and in holy ground take care of her honoured dead, who so freely gave their lives for Southern rights. The Potomac may seem to some the natural boundary between North and South; but it is hard to make up one’s mind yet to the entire surrender of our sister State; and if we could, gladly would we hope for Maryland, even as we hope for the Southern Confederacy herself.
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