Hilton Head. Got over bar this morning soon after day. Bingham
woke me up with the miserable news of Henry’s death, loss of seven pieces,
capture of four hundred wounded, and our total repulse about seven miles beyond
Sanderson. He has despatches from Turner to Gillmore.
Arrived at Hilton Head about 9½ after a good run of 14½
hours. Delivered our news to Gen'l Gillmore. The General was much shocked. He said:
— “This comes of disobeying orders.” He dwelt on this for some time. He said
afterwards: — “I should rather he had lost these men in obedience to orders
than in disobedience.”
Seymour has been very unsteady and queer since the beginning
of this campaign. He has been subject to violent alternations of timidity and
rashness, now declaring Florida loyalty was all bosh, now lauding it as the
purest article extant; now insisting that Beauregard was in his front with the whole
confederacy, and now asserting that he could whip all the rebels in Florida
with a good brigade. He was ordered to fortify St. Mary's and Baldwin, but
pushed out beyond Sanderson instead and got severely punished.
SOURCES: Clara B. Hay, Letters of John Hay and
Extracts from Diary, Volume 1, p. 167-8; Tyler Dennett, Editor, Lincoln
and the Civil War in the diaries and letters of John Hay, p. 164; Michael
Burlingame, Editor, Inside Lincoln's White House: The Complete Civil War Diary
of John Hay, p. 169.
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