Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes: Sunday, May 11, 1862

Camp near Adair's, Giles County, Virginia. — This is the first Sunday that has passed without my knowing the day of the week since childhood. The men bivouacked on a sidehill near New River. Nothing exciting during the day. The enemy in the Narrows, but not coming through. Our masterly retreat of yesterday lost the Twenty-third one killed, Hoyt C. Tenney, Company B, and three missing — prisoners and mostly drunk; perhaps eight or ten wounded, generally slightly. The cavalry, one killed, three missing, and some wounded. Gilmore's Cavalry, one killed and one wounded. The Twenty-third behaved admirably, cool, steady, obedient. A few cowards — a corporal or two in Company H, the most exposed company, a sergeant of Company , etc., etc.; but men of the Twenty-third with teams, etc., from Raleigh hastened to share our fate; five for every one who left. The Second Virginia Cavalry left us! Bad state of things.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 263

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