we drilled some the Capt & 1st Lieut absent the 1st Lieutenant has been sick for several days.
SOURCE: Edgar R. Harlan, Currator, Annals of Iowa, 3rd Series, Vol. 15, No. 2, October 1925, p. 87
we drilled some the Capt & 1st Lieut absent the 1st Lieutenant has been sick for several days.
SOURCE: Edgar R. Harlan, Currator, Annals of Iowa, 3rd Series, Vol. 15, No. 2, October 1925, p. 87
Was quite unwell for
a day or so. Nothing of particular interest occurred. Foraging parties were
sent out to gather all the provisions and vegetables they could, as scurvy was
making its appearance in a slight form. Visited the University of Mississippi
with Doctor Powell. Buildings were fine and well built, grounds handsome and I
saw the finest astronomical apparatus, they say, that there is in the country;
also a splendid collection of minerals purchased of a Mr. Budd in New York.
Weather beautiful.
SOURCE: Joseph
Stockton, War Diary (1862-5) of Brevet Brigadier General Joseph
Stockton, p. 6
I have a bright fire this morning. There is a nice chimney to my tent, which makes it almost as comfortable as a house. The regiment is on the extreme right of our lines, but is several miles from the field infirmary where I am stationed. The brigades are frequently shifted about, but I trust ours will remain where it is, because there is plenty of wood near by.
Everything is very quiet on the lines. I suppose you have heard of the defeat of General Early again in the Valley. He has not yet gained a single victory worth mentioning, and it is time we had a new commander there. We have a great many good fighters, but so few good generals. I am anxious to hear something from General Hood, for if he can whip Sherman at Atlanta the situation may be entirely changed.
The health of all the men appears to be about as good as if they were at home under shelter and with suitable diet. Our troops seem as happy and lively as men could be, although they get nothing to eat now but bread and meat. We have eaten nearly all the beef Hampton captured recently in rear of Grant's army, but we have received some from North Carolina which is very nice and tender.
Your brother Edwin is to be appointed a lieutenant in the Fourteenth Regiment. I took dinner with him yesterday. Lieutenant Petty, with whom he messes, had just received a box from home, and I fared sumptuously. My box has not yet arrived. Boxes now take about two weeks to reach here. Your brother had received his new suit from home. Billie is well and hearty, but he needs a new coat. These government coats are too thin for exposed duty.
I have a nice little Yankee axe, which is so light that it can be carried in a knapsack, but it just suits a soldier for use in putting up his little shelter tent or for making a fire. All the Yankees have these little axes, and many of our men have supplied themselves with them, as they have with almost everything else the Yankees possess.
Are you making preparations to come out here this winter? Colonel Hunt will have his wife to come out again, and a great many other officers are arranging for their wives to come on soon. Some of them are here already, but I think it best for you to wait until winter puts a stop to military operations. When we left the Rappahannock River last fall some of the officers carried their wives along by having them wrap up well and putting them in the ambulance; and if you were here and we had to move I could easily take you along that way. I want you to come just as soon as circumstances will permit, but this war has taught me to bear with patience those things which cannot be avoided and not to be upset when my wishes cannot be gratified.
April 12.
Should one inquire
for my health tonight, I might adopt the reply of a soldier yesterday:
"Not superior, thank God." A good night's sleep will restore all that
was lost under the tramp of couriers and rattle of sabres on the piazza during
the whole of last night. Why couriers should carry sabres except to be in
harmony with the general spirit of the War Department, I cannot conceive. There
would be precisely as much sense in my being tripped up by mine at the bedside
of the sick or at the operating table. Ample preparations were made for the
repulse of a large invading force and no force invaded. I guess we are all a
little sorry, since it seems like flying in the face of Providence to leave
unused for skirmishing these wonderful pine barrens. I thought General Saxton
looked a little disappointed about it when he came out this morning. General
Hunter, who ought to be holding Charleston today, was with him. Were I not so
sleepy I would crowd in a few curses here on the mismanagement which has
resulted in the withdrawal of our forces from before Charleston.
SOURCE: Proceedings
of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Volume 43, October, 1909—June,
1910: February 1910. p. 387-8
Colonel McNairy
started home on a furlough on account of ill health, leaving Captain Allison in
command of the battalion.
Allison received
orders to cross the river and report to Zollicoffer's headquarters as soon as
his men could cook three days' rations. We did not have three days’ rations,
but we cooked what we had, went to the river and commenced crossing, when, on
learning that we did not have the requisite amount of rations, Zollicoffer
ordered Allison to go back to camps and cook the rations, which he ordered the
brigade commissary to furnish. As soon as we had cooked our rations Allison
crossed the river and reported to our General that the First Battalion was
ready to move. Our Captain soon after returned and reported that the order to
cross the river was countermanded.
Mr. Andy Bogle, from
Cannon County, Tennessee, came in a carriage after Clabe Francis, a member of
Allison's Company, who was sick.
When I left Charlestown yesterday morning the weather was delightful and I felt so buoyant and fresh that it caused me to walk too fast, and to-day I am very sore and stiff. I found four letters from you, and they were a treat, for I had had no intelligence from you since July. I never get homesick in camp when I hear that you and George are well.
Our army has been here for three weeks. We are fourteen miles from Charlestown and ten miles northeast of Winchester. There is smallpox in Winchester, and General Lee has ordered the entire army vaccinated.
The weather is dry and pleasant and the men are in better health than I have ever seen them. This rich valley is full of provisions and the army is well fed. It is said that vast quantities of provisions of every kind are being sent from this valley into the interior to prevent the Yankees from getting them, and that when we have eaten out everything in this region we shall retire toward the interior. We have at present no prospect whatever of a fight. If our victory at Sharpsburg had been complete, doubtless we should now be in Pennsylvania.
Dr. Chapman got sick at Richmond, and we have heard nothing from him since. He had become so disagreeable that we had enough of him.
I have tried to be very faithful to my duty since I have been in the army, and I get along finely with the other doctors.
I will close this letter, so good-by, my dear wife and little boy.
Our brigade is now camped in the suburbs of Berryville and is doing picket duty; however, in three days more another brigade will relieve us. The rest of the division is within five miles of Winchester. There seems to be no prospect of a fight at this time, although our men continue to take prisoners occasionally. The largest number brought in at one time was 104.
The weather is still quite cold, but the health of the brigade remains good. But few men reported sick this morning. We still hear of a case of smallpox occasionally, but the army is well vaccinated and I am satisfied that we are all immune. We have plenty to eat. For breakfast this morning we had biscuit (and they were shortened too), fried bacon and fried cabbage. For dinner we had boiled beef and dumplings, with biscuit and boiled eggs. Dr. Kilgore and I dined in Berryville yesterday with a Dr. Counsellor. The dinner was fine and the table was graced by his charming wife.
I still have about thirty dollars, but our quartermaster has gone to Richmond to get several months' pay for us. Please send my suit to me, for I wish to give the one I am now wearing to my servant, Wilson. He also needs a pair of shoes. In your last letter you ask if I have the night-cap which your aunt made for me. I lost it one morning before day, when preparing for battle. Take good care of George.
SOURCE: Dr. Spenser G. Welch, A Confederate Surgeon's Letters to His Wife, p. 35-6
We traveled 175 miles from the Valley to this place in twelve days, and are now encamped upon precisely the same spot we were occupying when we left this region last spring. Our march was the least disagreeable of any I have experienced, because the weather was very cold and we traveled during the day only. We were well fed also, compared with our other marches. We had rain but once and snow twice. Many of the men were barefooted and the march was terrible for them. Billie, Ed and I stood it first-rate and none of us lagged behind once. By a mere chance we got our clothing at Orange Court House. We feel very grateful to you and the others for your trouble and expense for us. My suit fits as well as I could wish, and everyone admires it. Wilson had his knapsack stolen the first night after we got the clothes. He is very careless, and so is Billie. Unless one is extremely careful everything he has will be stolen from him in camp. Half of the men in the army seem to have become thieves.
We have an enormous force concentrated here now. Nearly all the men are well clothed, but some few are not. We still have a few barefooted men because their feet are too large for the Government shoes. The health of the troops continues fine. Last summer never less than two hundred men reported sick every morning in our regiment, and now there are never more than twelve or fifteen cases.
I doubt our having any more fighting this winter, as such weather as this puts a stop to all military operations. The enemy cannot advance on us nor can we advance on them. I think we surely will go into winter quarters soon, for it is folly for us to be lying out as we are. We have good health, it is true, but it is extremely unpleasant.
I may have an opportunity to send you some more money soon, and you may spend it if you wish, for it may be worthless when the war is over.
George will be one year old on the seventh.
Yesterday was a very wet day, but we can keep fairly comfortable with the little Yankee tents we have captured during the summer campaign and with those which have been issued to us. Wood is very plentiful where we are now encamped and we have rousing fires. We have been blessed so far this winter in regard to weather. We have become so accustomed to the cold that we do not mind it, and you will be surprised when I tell you that for the last two nights I have slept part of the time without any cover at all. When I was at home I would have a fresh cold every two or three weeks during the winter, but now, with all our exposure, I never have a cold, and I believe it is because I am in the same temperature all the time.
Everything is very quiet here, and we have no prospect at all of a fight. The Yankee forces are so large that we cannot expect to gain more decided victories over them. All we can do is to hold them in check until they are discouraged and worn out.
General Lee grants furloughs now to two at a time from each company, and I may soon have a chance to get home. I am very anxious to see George. He must be very attractive, but we must not dote on him or anything else which is earthly. When you write tell me all about some of his little capers.
February 7, 1863.
Emerson and Thoreau are oftener in my mind, in connection with this camp life and these people, than any other writers I know. While I am constantly studying how to keep these men well, or to alleviate their sufferings, they as constantly fill me with something higher than a feeling of philanthropy, a sort of oriental sympathy, outreaching the wants of the body. Gen. Saxton has said that these people are "intensely human," and I will add that I find them intensely divine. It is, however, more difficult to call out the divine than the human. The blessings resulting from freedom will wash away the accursed stains of slavery and all the world will see that these are also children of God. They have a boundless conception of the divine spirit and an intense trust in the fatherhood of God. . . . It is true, they will commit almost as many sins as their white neighbors, but I am speaking now of the religious element and leaving the moral to be controlled by culture. . .
Keeping our men below so long on the John Adams destroyed more lives than the rifle shots would have done. It seemed a choice of evils and the least apparent was chosen. But the return of sunshine will help restore the sick.
On leaving our last
camp we first went back five miles in a northerly direction to Orange Court
House, and we thought Jackson intended to take us over the same road we had
fallen back on a few days before; but from there we took the road to
Fredericksburg. Then everyone said we were going to Fredericksburg. That was a
mistake also, for after going about ten miles we turned to the left and went
three miles toward the Rapidan River, and have stopped at this place. It is
believed that Jackson intended to cross the river and flank Pope, and that the
Yankees got wind of it. They were on a mountain and may have seen our large
force moving. Jackson is a general who is full of resources, and if he fails in
one plan he will try another.
The men stood the
march better than at any previous time. The health of the brigade has improved
since we are where we can breathe the pure mountain air. This beautiful
country, with its mountains and rolling hills, is enough to make any sick man
feel better. We all sleep out in the open air—officers as well as
privates—although the weather is becoming quite cool and signs of autumn begin
to appear. The crops of corn are magnificent and are almost matured, but
wherever our army goes, roasting ears and green apples suffer. I have often
read of how armies are disposed to pillage and plunder, but could never
conceive of it before. Whenever we stop for twenty-four hours every corn field
and orchard within two or three miles is completely stripped. The troops not
only rob the fields, but they go to the houses and insist on being fed, until
they eat up everything about a man's premises which can be eaten. Most of them
pay for what they get at the houses, and are charged exorbitant prices, but a
hungry soldier will give all he has for something to eat, and will then steal
when hunger again harasses him. When in health and tormented by hunger he
thinks of little else besides home and something to eat. He does not seem to
dread the fatiguing marches and arduous duties.
A wounded soldier
who has been in Jackson's army for a long time told me his men had but one suit
of clothes each, and whenever a suit became very dirty the man would pull it
off and wash it and then wait until it dried. I believe this to be a fact,
because when I see Jackson's old troop on the march none have any load to carry
except a blanket, and many do not even have a blanket; but they always appear
to be in fine spirits and as healthy and clean as any of our men.The
force we have here now is a mammoth one. I am told that Lee and Johnson are
both here, and I am anxious for our army to engage Pope. Whenever we start on a
march I am impatient to go on and fight it out, for we are confident we can
whip the enemy.
We are now cooking
up two days' rations and are ordered to have them in our haversacks and be
ready to move at sundown, but we may not go at that time, because we sometimes
receive such orders and then do not leave for a day or two. I will write again
whenever I have a chance.
Springfield, Sept. 7th. I never had better health in my life, though
we had a hard time[.] While marching from Sedalia to this place—a distance of
One Hundred and twenty five miles, which we marched in six days over the most
hilly and dusty roads I ever say. This
is doubtless to the poorest country in the west. The drought has nearly ruined the crops, and
it looks little like subsisting a large army here through the winter.
Our troops nearly famished for water on their
march, and the roads were so dusty that none could scarcely tell the color of
our cloths or even the color of the men.
After crossing the Osage River, we commenced climbing the Ozark Mountains,
and had nothing but hills, hollows and rocks from their to Springfield.
Take it, all in all, it is one of the most
God-forsaken countries I ever saw. War
has destroyed every thing in its way, houses [tenantless], fences burned, and
orchards destroyed. You can scarcely see
a man in a day’s travel, unless it is some old man unable to do any thing.
– Published in The Union Sentinel,
Osceola, Iowa, Saturday, October 18, 1862, p. 2
18th Corps HOSPITAL, Point of Rocks. I have been here a little more than a week and begin to feel a little rested. I have not written a letter for more than a month and about everything has been neglected. I hung around the regiment as long as Ass’t Surgeon Hoyt would allow me to, and the first of the month he piled me into an ambulance and sent me here, saying I could have a much better celebration here than I could in the trenches. This was my first ride in an ambulance and I didn't enjoy it worth a cent. I have always had a strong aversion to that kind of conveyance and have always clung to the hope that I might be spared from it. My health began to fail early in the spring. I said nothing about it, thinking I should improve as the weather grew warmer, but instead of improving I grew worse, until now I am unfit for anything. At first I was terribly afflicted with piles, then chills and fever, and now I have a confirmed liver complaint which no amount of blue mass, calomel or acids affect in the least unless it is to help it along. I reckon if I can keep pretty quiet and can hold out till I get home I shall stand a chance to recover from it, but it will be a slow job.
HARRISONBURG, VIRGINIA, October 4, 1864.
Dear MOTHER: — I celebrate my forty-second birthday by writing a few letters.
We have had a few gloomy days — wet, windy, and cold — but this morning
it cleared off bright and warm. The camps look prettier than usual. Many flags
are floating gaily and every one seems hopeful and happy. There is a universal
desire to return towards the Potomac. We shall probably soon be gratified, as
we have pretty nearly finished work in this quarter.
I am in excellent health. This life probably wears men out a little
sooner than ordinary occupations, even if they escape the dangers from battle
and the like, but I am certain that we are quite as healthy as people who live
in houses.—My love to all.
Beaufort, S. C., January 13, 1865.
Retired about 11 p. m. and woke up here this morning. A very handsome, small town, about the size of Canton, but more fine dwellings. All have been confiscated and sold to the negroes and white Union men. Find the 17th A. C. here, but about ready to move out to drive the Rebels away from the ferry, where we will lay our pontoons to the main land. The 14th and 20th will move by land and join us on the main land somewhere. Hardly imagine what our next move will be, but mostly think we will tear up the railroads through the Carolinas and take Charleston and Wilmington during the spring campaign. The health of the command is perfect, and all are in most soldierly spirits. Thinking nothing impossible if Sherman goes with us, and go he will.
SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 337
CAMP SAXTON, BEAUFORT, February 8, 1863.
I feel that it was a little cowardly in me to run away from camp yesterday, but I knew that three of our good soldiers must die within a few hours and I could do no more for them. It is just impossible for me to get used to losing patients. Such death is equivalent to losing some vital part of one's self. This comes from distrust of myself, rather than of God. Our sick list is rapidly lessening and all will soon be as usual. I have this afternoon conversed with a pro-slavery surgeon, who has had much to do with negroes. I thought he seemed rather pleased in making the statement that their power of endurance was not equal to that of the whites. I nevertheless gathered valuable information and hints relative to their treatment. If I am permitted to remain in this regiment a year I shall prove that, while the blacks are subject to quite different diseases from those of the whites, the mortality among them will average less and the available strength or efficiency will average
This is the season for white soldiers to be well and blacks to be ill. . . .
SOURCE: Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Volume 43, October, 1909—June, 1910: February 1910. p. 359
Our Colonel [General] has been down to Hilton Head today and reported Brig. Gen. Stephenson under arrest and to be sent to Washington for asserting that he would rather the Union cause should be lost than be saved by black soldiers. I should like to see the gentleman this evening. Everything may go against us in the present, but these little episodes are refreshing.
My heart is lightened by the return of usual health to our camp. It is pleasant to find every one looking up instead of down. Some of the replies to medical questions are quite unique, as, for instance, “I feel jail-bound an’ cough powerful.” “I've got misery all de way down from de top ob de head to de sole ob de foot.”
If I had not promised you freedom from individual histories in the future, I should try to write out the history of my head hospital nurse. Mr. Spaulding is a very superior man. He was kept in the stocks three weeks in the winter and his legs have not since been as strong as before. He is averse to speaking of himself. I trust his integrity, tenderness and natural ability as I would trust those qualities in John Milton Earle. He is a prince in the department and commands the respect of all.
SOURCE: Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Volume 43, October, 1909—June, 1910: February 1910. p. 364-5
My health is excellent. Our troops are improving under the easy marches. We shall get well rested doing what the Sixth and Nineteenth Corps of the Potomac ([who] are with us) regard as severe campaigning.
I have heard nothing from home since I saw Lucy on 10th [of]
July. Direct to me: "First Brigade, Second Division, Army of West
Virginia, via Harpers Ferry."
DEAR MOTHER:— We have a pretty large Rebel army just in front of us. We drove it before us several days until it was reinforced when it slowly drove us back to this point. Here we are in a pretty good position and there seems to be a purpose to fight a general battle here if the enemy choose to attack. Of course, there are frequent skirmishes and affairs in which parts of the army only are engaged which are small battles. So far our success in such affairs has been quite as good as the enemy's. I am inclined to think that there will be no general engagement here. It looks as if we were so well prepared that the Rebels would move in some other direction.
I am now longer without a letter from you than ever before. I know you write but we have had no mails. — My health is good. I heard from Lucy and Uncle Sunday. The weather is now delightful. We have had good rains. — Love to all.