Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: January 20, 1863

The rumor of fighting on the Rappahannock is not confirmed. But Gen. Lee writes that his beeves are so poor the soldiers won't eat the meat. He asks the government to send him salt meat.

From Northern sources we learn that Arkansas Post has fallen, and that we have lost from 5000 to 7000 men there. If this be true, our men must have been placed in a man-trap, as at Roanoke Island.

Mr. Perkins, in Congress, has informed the country that Mr. Memminger, the Secretary of the Treasury, has hitherto opposed and defeated the proposition that the government buy all the cotton. Mr. M. should never have been appointed. He is headstrong, haughty, and tyrannical when he imagines he is dealing with inferiors, and he deems himself superior to the rest of mankind. But he is no Carolinian by birth or descent.

We see accounts of public meetings in New Jersey, wherein the government at Washington is fiercely denounced, and peace demanded, regardless of consequences. Some of the speakers openly predicted that the war would spread into the North, if not terminated at once, and in that event, the emancipationists would have foes to fight elsewhere than in the South. Among the participants I recognize the names of men whom I met in convention at Trenton in 1860. They clamor for the “Union as it was, the Constitution as it is,” adopting the motto of my paper, the “Southern Monitor,” the office of which was sacked in Philadelphia in April, 1861. Our government will never agree to anything short of independence. President Davis will be found inflexible on that point.

There was a rumor yesterday that France had recognized us. The news of the disaster of Burnside at Fredericksburg having certainly been deemed very important in Europe. But France has not yet acted in our behalf. We all pray for the Emperor's intervention. We suffer much, and but little progress is made in conscription. Nearly all our resources are in the field. Another year of war, and ——!

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 242-3

Diary of Gideon Welles: Thursday, January 22, 1863

There is a rumor that Fitz John Porter, whose trial of over forty days has interested the public, is found guilty and has been cashiered. A different result was reported at the close of the trial a fortnight since. It was then said he was unanimously acquitted. I did not give implicit credit to that rumor, though I read none of the testimony; but my impressions and observation and all that I heard at the War Department in relation to Porter and other generals in the day and time of their occurrence for which he was arraigned were such I could not believe him wholly guiltless. The finding and punishment are severe, but I apprehend not entirely undeserved. I do not, however, impute to him disloyalty or treachery, but he was one of a mortified clique or combination who were vexed and dissatisfied, not without cause perhaps, that an inferior officer for whom they had not high regard should have been brought from a distant department and placed over them, their plans and operations broken up, and the commander whom they respected and to whom they were attached superseded and virtually disgraced. But if the country was made to suffer by this mortified partisan combination, it was a crime which should not go unrebuked or unpunished. Porter may not have been the chief or only sinner, though the victim in this combination.

It was not a wise or judicious movement to place Pope at the head of the army last summer. If I am not mistaken those who participated in it now think so. An intrigue against McClellan brought him and Halleck here. Perhaps under no circumstances was Pope equal to the command given him, but I thought then and still believe he was not faithfully and fairly sustained by Porter and his associates. McClellan and most of his generals were vexed and irritated. They had some cause for dissatisfaction, but not to the injury of the country. Fitz John Porter, the intimate of McClellan, entered with all the ardor of a partisan and a clansman into the feelings and wrongs of his commander. He and the set to which he belonged did not, I thought at the time, wish Pope to acquire great glory; their zeal for victory was weak when he commanded, and the battle was lost. To some extent the results at the second Bull Run fight are attributable to the bad conduct of the generals. It has been evident the soldiers of the Army of the Potomac were not enthusiastic for Pope, — that they did not like him. This is true, but who chilled them? Who encouraged their dislike?

The Weehawken has arrived at Hampton Roads, having rode out the gale without making a port. No man but John Rodgers would have pushed on his vessel in that terrific storm. The Nahant, a better vessel, sought the Breakwater, as did some of our best wooden steamers.

General Burnside was to have made a forward movement, but the storm prevented. There are rumors that the army is much demoralized, that the soldiers do not give their confidence to Burnside, doubt his military capacity, and that some of the generals are cool. There is, I think, some truth and some exaggeration in all these reports.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 225-6

Diary of Judith Brockenbrough McGuire: January 31, 1863

We are in statu quo, and our armies quiet. The Northern army seems to be in commotion. Burnside has resigned, and “fighting Joe Hooker” has been put in his place. Sumner and Franklin have also resigned their “grand divisions.” Pourquoi? Won't the men advance? Perhaps the Stafford mud has been more than a match for them. Burnside had issued but a few days ago an address to his men, saying they were about to “strike the final blow at the rebellion.” All was in readiness, and the “Grand Army” moved forward; just then the “rain descended and the floods came,” and, attempting to cross the Rappahannock ten miles above Fredericksburg, ambulances, wagons, big guns and all stuck in the mud; the order, “To your tents, O Israel,” had to be given, and the “rebellion” still flourishes.

SOURCE: Judith W. McGuire, Diary of a Southern Refugee, During the War, p. 187

Major General George G. Meade to Margaretta Sergeant Meade, January 23, 1863

CAMP NEAR FALMOUTH, VA., January 23, 1863.

I have not written to you for several days, for the reasons that I have had no opportunity, and that I was aware all letters from the camp were stopped in Washington, so that there was no use in writing. On the 19th, in the night, we received orders to move the next day. On the 20th, the whole army moved from their camp to a position four miles up the river, where crossing places had previously been selected. Everything went off very well up to about 8 P. M. of the 20th. The army reached its position. The pontoons, artillery and all other accessories were up in time, and we all thought the next morning the bridges would be thrown over and we should be at it. But man proposes and God disposes. About 9 P. M. a terrific storm of wind and rain set in and continued all night. At once I saw the game was up. The next day the roads were almost impassable; the pontoons, in attempting to get them to the water's edge, stuck on the bank, and a hundred men could not budge them. Instead of six bridges being thrown over by 8 A. M., it was found late in the day that the materials for one only could be got to the water's edge. Burnside visited us, and soon saw the state of the case. Still in hopes something might happen, he directed we should remain in position. All that night, the 21st, and the next day, the 22d, it continued to rain, and the roads to get into such a condition, that early yesterday, the 22d, I had to turn out the whole of my corps, fifteen thousand men, and go to work and bridge with logs, or corduroy, as it is called, nearly the whole road from our camp to the crossing place, eight miles. The men worked cheerfully at this, which was accomplished by early this morning, and Burnside having recalled the army to its old camp, we have been all day getting our artillery back, and to-morrow the infantry will return, thus consuming two days to get back, when it took only a few hours to get there. I never felt so disappointed and sorry for any one in my life as I did for Burnside. He really seems to have even the elements against him. I told him warmly, when I saw him, how sorry I felt, and that I had almost rather have lost a limb than that the storm should have occurred. He seemed quite philosophical, said he could not resist the elements and perhaps it was as well, for that his movement had been most strongly opposed and some of his generals had told him he was leading the men to a slaughter pen; and I am sorry to say there were many men, and among them generals high in command, who openly rejoiced at the storm and the obstacle it presented. We were very much amused to see in the papers to-day, flaming accounts of our crossing, of the battle, and of Hooker being mortally wounded. I hope you did not attach any importance to these absurd reports, which, when I saw, I feared you might have been anxious. I presumed the truth had been telegraphed and that you would know the storm had frustrated our plans. The plan was based on the presumption that we would take the enemy unawares, at least so far as the place of crossing was concerned, and I believe, but for the storm, we should have succeeded in this. What will be done now I cannot imagine, the mud is at present several feet thick wherever any wagons pass over a road, and if the weather from this time, should at all resemble that of last year, it will effectually stop all operations for two months to come.

I did not see George¹ during our fiasco, though I was at one time bivouacked near a part of his regiment, but his company was not with that part.

Doubleday has been assigned to the Reserves, which is a good thing for me, for now they will think a great deal more of me than before.

__________

¹ Son of General Meade.

SOURCE: George Meade, The Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade, Vol. 1, p. 348-9