Monday, February 20, 2017

Diary of 1st Lieutenant John S. Morgan: Saturday, April 22, 1865

Quiet all night, a little shower about Midnight. As I was not notified that we would march today lay in bed until late. Our Nigger Charlie brought breakfast for me which I greatly relished. It is talked that this is about the only place on the river the jonnies could bring guns to bear on transports & is to be fortified & held by a garrison a gunboat lies in the river here & I hear that 5 more are 5 miles above. I am relieved & return to camp at 11. a m after dinner Lt Loughridge & I walk to the river about ¼ mile from camp. The bank a very steep bluff 50 ft high, on the bank a good & large frame house splendidly furnished & the folks at home. I hear the man is a parolled prisoner from Lees army. I understand that there are two cuts off one about 3 miles & the other about 10 or 15 miles above here & that it is the object to go above these & plant guns large enough to keep the Reb fleet which is above from coming down. Patrolls arrest quite a no of men for foraging and more fore nothing, march them to Div Hd Quarters, all punished alike riding a wooden horse, a beautiful day but Evening somewhat cool, a negro dance in the battery near by. Amusing.

SOURCE: “Diary of John S. Morgan, Company G, 33rd Iowa Infantry,” Annals of Iowa, 3rd Series, Vol. 13, No. 8, April 1923, p. 594

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