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.
SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and
Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 146-7
No comments:
Post a Comment