Camp Maskell, near Gauley. — Ninth to twelfth bright,
warm days; cold nights; snow scarcely melted at all on the north side of the
hills. The river is low and freezes in the pools clear across. A single very
severe night would close navigation on the Kanawha. Nothing will save us from
this calamity but a mild winter or a freshet in the river. With this low water
a cold winter will bother us exceedingly. Well, well, our camp is growing; a
few nails have come to us; no sawed lumber yet.
Yesterday (11th) received a good letter from Lucy. She has
read Wendell Holmes’ “Search After the Captain” in [the] December number of
[the] Atlantic and thinks I must not laugh at her any more about her
efforts to find me — I being at Middletown and she at Washington searching the
hospitals for me.
Today got news of the capture of a brigade of our troops in
Tennessee by four thousand of John Morgan's men! Either a surprise or a
disgraceful thing of some sort! Also the crossing of the river at
Fredericksburg after heavy cannonading.
SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and
Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 373-4
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