Diary of Private Daniel L. Ambrose: Friday, October 16, 1863

A brigade of infantry pass through Chewalla on their way from Vicksburg to Corinth. They look as though they had seen hard service down on the Yazoo. This evening the order comes for five companies to report back to Corinth.

SOURCE: Daniel Leib Ambrose, History of the Seventh Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry, p. 198-9

Major-General Ulyssess S. Grant to Major-General Nathaniel P. Banks, July 11, 1863

VICKSBURG, MISS., July 11, 1863.

Maj. Gen. N. P. BANKS, Comdg. Department of the Gulf:

GENERAL: It is with pleasure I congratulate you upon your removal of the last obstacle to the free navigation of the Mississippi. This will prove a death to Copperheadism in the Northwest, besides serving to demoralize the enemy. Like arming the negroes, it will act as a two-edged sword, cutting both ways.

Immediately on receipt of your dispatches I forwarded them by Colonel Riggin, of my staff, who will take them as far as Cairo. I ordered the boats and other articles you required at once, and as many of the boats as can be got ready will go down at the same time with this. I also ordered, on the strength of Colonel Smith's report, about 1,000 men to Natchez, to hold that place for a few days, and to collect the cattle that have been crossing there for the rebel army. I am also sending a force to Yazoo City, to gather the heavy guns the rebels have there, and to capture, if possible, the steamers the enemy have in Yazoo River.

Sherman is still out with a very large force after Joe Johnston, and cannot well be back under six or seven days. It will be impossible, therefore, for me to send you the forces asked for in your letter until the expiration of that time. I telegraphed to Washington, however, the substance of your request and the reason for it. So far as anything I know of being expected from my force, I can spare you an army corps of as good troops as ever trod American soil. No better are found on any other. It will afford me pleasure to send them if I am not required to do some duty requiring them. When the news of success reached me, I had General Herron's division on board transports, ready to start for Port Hudson. That news induced me to change their direction to Yazoo City.

I am, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

U.S. GRANT.

SOURCES: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 24, Part 3 (Serial No. 38), p. 499-500; John Y. Simon, Editor, The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Volume 9, p. 31-2

Major-General Ulysses S. Grant to Major-General Cadwallader C. Washburn, June 15, 1863

NEAR VICKSBURG, MISS., June 15, 1863.

Maj. Gen. C. C. WASHBURN,
        Commanding Detachment, Sixteenth Army Corps:

I did not think it advisable to send Sergeant Hall and party on the expedition marked out for them. It would be one of vast importance to us if accomplished, but with the small force taken by Sergeant Hall, every neighborhood could raise a force to follow them, and insure his capture. If captured they would certainly be hung, if not shot when taken.

The information given by McBirney does not look like an intention to attack Haynes' Bluff immediately, but a disposition to get and hold a footing on the ridge as near to it as possible, while they are collecting their forces for an attack. Their intention evidently is to come down suddenly when they do move, and for that reason they will endeavor to get a position as near us as possible.

It is not necessary for me to say to you that great vigilance should be shown by our cavalry. I have directed Hall to scout through the country from the Sunflower to Greenville. I want to discover if the enemy are collecting stores, apparently to be used on the Mississippi River, or if they are all to be east of the Yazoo.

They may possibly design their present movement to cover the crossing of troops to the west bank of the Yazoo. I hold here six brigades in readiness to move at a moment's notice, should an attack become inevitable.

If more artillery can be got to send you, I will send it, but troops will not be sent at present. They cannot be sent without changing lines here, or without taking the reserve brigades from one of the army corps.

U.S. GRANT.

SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 24, Part 3 (Serial No. 38), p. 410-1

Major-General Ulysses S. Grant to Lieutenant-Colonel Samuel J. Nasmith, June 25, 1863

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE TENNESSEE,        

Near Vicksburg, June 25, 1863.

Lieut. Col. SAMUEL J. NASMITH,

        Comdg. Officer, Expedition against Greenville, Miss.:

SIR: As soon as the troops brought by you from Snyder's Bluff, and the battery of artillery sent from here, are embarked, you will proceed to the mouth of the Yazoo River, where you will find two gunboats lying under command of Captain Selfridge, and soon as he can get off you will proceed to Greenville, Miss.

It is reported that the enemy have moved a battery and about 250 men from Yazoo City to a point some 6 miles above Greenville. The object of the expedition you command is to capture this battery and troops if possible. Specific directions how to do it are not necessary, but use every effort to effect the object of the expedition. Should they retreat, and your force prove sufficient to compete with them, follow them as long as there is a hope of capture. On your return, in case of pursuit, destroy all bridges and corn-cribs, bring away all negroes disposed to follow you, and teams of rebels to haul them and their plunder. Keep your men out of the houses as much as possible, and prevent plundering. Give the people to understand if their troops make raids necessary, all their crops and means of raising crops will be destroyed.

After breaking up the rebels on the Mississippi, then proceed to Catfish Point, where there is also said to be a battery established by the enemy. The same general direction applies to it.

Should any negroes accompany you, they will be left at one of the camps established either at Milliken's Bend or Young's Point.

Respectfully, yours,

U. S. GRANT.

SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 24, Part 3 (Serial No. 38), p. 437-8

Major-General Ulysses S. Grant: Special Orders No. 141, May 26 1863

SPECIAL ORDERS, No. 141.}

HDQRS. DEPT. OF THE TENNESSEE,    

In Field, near Vicksburg, Miss., May 26, 1863.

I. Three brigades will be immediately detached from the Fifteenth and Seventeenth Army Corps, each, including the brigade at Haynes' Bluff. The whole will be under the temporary command of Maj. Gen. F. P. Blair.

The troops from the Fifteenth Army Corps will proceed immediately to Haynes' Bluff.† Those from the Seventeenth Army Corps will move by the Oak Ridge road to Sulphur Springs. At or near the latter place a junction will be formed between all the forces, when they will move upon and drive out the enemy now collecting between the Black and Yazoo Rivers.

The expedition will carry in haversacks and wagons seven days' rations of bread, salt and coffee, and 150 rounds of ammunition, including that in cartridge-boxes.

The commanding officer of the expedition will report at these headquarters for special instructions.

 

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

By order of Maj. Gen. U.S. Grant:

[JOHN A. RAWLINS,]    

Assistant Adjutant-General.

_______________

† The First Brigade, First Division, and Second Brigade, Second Division, Fifteenth Army Corps, and First Brigade, Third Division, Seventeenth Army Corps, designated for this service.

SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 24, Part 3 (Serial No. 38), p. 352

Diary of 5th Sergeant Osborn H. Oldroyd: May 30, 1863

Moved this morning at four o'clock back again towards Vicksburg—rather an early start, unless some special business awaits us. A few surmise that there is need for us at the front, but I think it is only a freak of General Frank Blair, who is in command of our excursion party. The day has been hot, and we have been rushed forward as though the salvation of the Union depended upon our forced march. I am not a constitutional grumbler, but I fail to understand why we have been trotted through this sultry Yazoo bottom where pure air seems to be a stranger. Probably our commander wants to get us out of it as soon as posible. A few of the men have been oppressed with the heat, and good water is very scarce. This seems to be a very rich soil, made up no doubt of river deposits. A ridge runs parallel with the river, and it is on that elevation all the plantation buildings are located, overlooking the rich country around. The Yazoo river is a very sluggish stream and said to be quite deep. The darkies claim it is “dun full of cat-fish.” I think we may probably have fresh, fish, but not till we catch Vicksburg, and then only in case we are allowed to take a rest, for I presume there will then turn up some other stronghold for Grant and his army to take, and for which we shall have to be off as soon as this job is ended. We camped at dark, after a severe and long march, and it is now raining very hard.

SOURCE: Osborn Hamiline Oldroyd, A Soldier's Story of the Siege of Vicksburg, p. 38-9

Diary of 5th Sergeant Osborn H. Oldroyd: May 31, 1863

We were aroused by the bugle call, and in a few minutes on the march again. Halted at noon on a large plantation. This is a capital place to stop, for the negroes are quite busy baking corn-bread and sweet potatoes for us. We have had a grand dinner at the expense of a rich planter now serving in the southern army. Some of the negroes wanted to come with us, but we persuaded them to remain, telling them they would see hard times if they followed us. They showed indications of good treatment, and I presume their master is one of the few who treat their slaves like human beings.

I must say—whether right or wrong-plantation life has had a sort of fascination for me ever since I came south, especially when I visit one like that where we took dinner to-day, and some, also, I visited in Tennessee. I know I should treat my slaves well, and, while giving them a good living, I should buy, but never sell.

We left at three o'clock P. M., and just as the boys were ordered to take with them some of the mules working in the field, where there was a large crop being cultivated, to be used, when gathered, for the maintenance of our enemies. As our boys, accordingly, were unhitching the mules, some “dutchy” in an officer's uniform rode up, yelling, “mens! you left dem schackasses alone!” I doubt whether he had authority to give such an order, but whether he had or not he was not obeyed. When we marched off with our corn-bread and “schackasses,” some of the darkies insisted on following. We passed through some rebel works at Haines' Bluffs, which were built to protect the approach to Vicksburg by way of the Yazoo river. Sherman had taken them on the nineteenth instant, when our boats came up the river and delivered rations.

May has now passed, with all its hardships and privations to the army of the west—the absence of camp comforts; open fields for dwelling places; the bare ground for beds; cartridge boxes for pillows, and all the other tribulations of an active campaign. Enduring these troubles, we have given our country willing service. We have passed through some hard-fought battles, where many of our comrades fell, now suffering in hospitals or sleeping, perhaps, in unmarked graves. Well they did their part, and much do we miss them. Their noble deeds shall still incite our emulation, that their proud record may not be sullied by any act of ours.

Camped at dark, tired, dirty and ragged-having had no chance to draw clothes for two months.

SOURCE: Osborn Hamiline Oldroyd, A Soldier's Story of the Siege of Vicksburg, p. 39-40

Major-General William T. Sherman to H. W. Hill, September 7, 1863

HEADQUARTERS FIFTEENTH ARMY CORPS,                       

Camp on Big Black, September 7, 1863.

H. W. HILL, Esq.,

Chairman of Meeting of Citizens, Warren Co., Miss.:

SIR: The communication addressed to General Grant, myself, and other officers, in the nature of a petition* is received. I think it proper and right that the property-holding classes of Warren County, and indeed of the whole State of Mississippi, should meet in their capacity as citizens to talk over matters, so that they may take any steps they deem to their interest, and if such meetings be open and with the knowledge of the nearest military commander, I will protect them whilst so engaged.

Your preamble, however, starts out with a mistake. I do not think any nation ever undertook to feed, supply, and provide for the future of the inhabitants of an insurgent district. We have done so here and in other instances in this war, but my reading has discovered no parallel cases. If you know of any, I will thank you for a copy of the history which records them. I know it is the purpose of the controlling generals of this war to conduct it on the most humane principles of either ancient or modern times and according to them. I contend that after the firing on our steam-boats navigating our own rivers after the long and desperate resistance to our armies at Vicksburg, on the Yazoo, and in Mississippi generally, we are justified in treating all the inhabitants as combatants and would be perfectly justifiable in transporting you all beyond the seas if the United States deemed it to her interest; but our purpose is not to change the population of this country, but to compel all the inhabitants to acknowledge and submit to the common laws of the land. When all or a part of the inhabitants acknowledge the just rights of the United States, the war as to them ceases. But I will reply to your questions in the order you put them.

First. The duty of the Government to protect and the inhabitants to assist is reciprocal. The people of Warren County have not assisted the United States much as yet, and are therefore not entitled to much protection. What future protection they receive will depend on their own conduct.

Second. The negroes, former slaves by inheritance or purchase, that now fill the country have been turned loose upon the world by their former owners, who by rebelling against the only earthly power that insured them the rightful possession of such property have practically freed them. They are a poor, ignorant class of human beings, that appeal to all for a full measure of forbearance. The task of providing for them at present devolves on the United States because, ex necessitate, the United States succeeds by act of war to the former lost title of the master. This task is a most difficult one, and needs time for development and execution. The white inhabitants of the country must needs be patient, and allow time for the work. In due season the negroes at Roach's and Blake's will be hired, employed by the Government, or removed to camps where they can be conveniently fed; but in the mean time no one must molest them, or interfere with the agents of the United States intrusted with this difficult and delicate task. If any of them are armed it is for self-defense, and if they mistake their just relation to the Government or the people, we will soon impress on them the truth.

Third. Your third inquiry is embraced in the above. I don t know that any fixed and determined plan is matured, but some just and proper provisions will be made for the negro population of this State.

Fourth. Congress alone can appropriate public money. We cannot hire servants for the people who have lost their slaves, nor can we detail negroes for such purposes. You must do as we do, hire your servants and pay them. If they don't earn their hire, discharge them and employ others. Many have already done this and are satisfied with the results.

Fifth. I advise all citizens to stay at home, gradually put their houses and contiguous grounds in order, and cast about for some employment or make preparations on a moderate scale to resume their former business and employment. I cannot advise any one to think of planting on a large scale, for it is manifest no one can see far enough in the future to say who will reap what you sow. You must first make a government before you can have property. There  is no such thing as property without government. Of course, we think that our Government (which is still yours) is the best and easiest put in full operation here. You are still citizens of the United States and of the State of Mississippi. You have only to begin and form one precinct, then another; soon your country will have such organization that the military authorities would respect it. The example of one county would infect another, and that another, in a compound ratio, and it would not be long till the whole State would have such strength by association that, with the assistance of the United States, you could defy any insurgent force. The moment the State can hold an open, fair election, and send Senators and Members to Congress, I doubt not they would be received, and then Mississippi would again be as much a part of our Government as Indiana and Kentucky now are, equal to them in all respects, and could soon have courts, laws, and all the machinery of civil government. Until that is done, it is idle to talk, about little annoyances, such as you refer to at Deer Creek and Roach's. As long as war lasts these troubles will exist, and, in truth, the longer the war is protracted, the more bitter will be the feeling, and the poor people will have to bear it, for they cannot help themselves.

General Grant can give you now no permanent assurance or guaranties, nor can I, nor can anybody. Of necessity, in war the commander on the spot is the judge, and may take your house, your fields, your everything, and, turn you all out, helpless, to starve. It may be wrong, but that don't alter the case. In war you can't help yourselves, and the only possible remedy is to stop war. I know this is no easy task, but it is well for you to look the fact square in the face and let your thoughts and acts tend to the great solution. Those who led the people into war promised all manner of good things to you, and where are their promises? A child may fire a city, but it takes a host of strong men to extinguish it. So a demagogue may fire the minds of a whole people, but it will take a host like ourselves to subdue the flames of anger thus begotten. The task is a mammoth one, but still you will in after years be held recreant if you do not lend your humble assistance. I know that hundreds and thousands of good Southern men now admit their error in appealing to war, and are engaged in the worthy effort to stop it before all is lost. Look around you and see the wreck. Let your minds contemplate the whole South in like chaos and disorder, and what a picture! Those who die by the bullet are lucky compared to those poor fathers and wives and children who see their all taken and themselves left to perish, or linger out their few years in ruined poverty. Our duty is not to build up; it is rather to destroy both the rebel army and whatever of wealth or property it rounded its boasted strength upon. Therefore don't look to any army to help you; act for yourselves. Study your real duties to yourselves and families, and if you remain inert, or passively friendly to the power that threatens our national existence, you must reap the full consequences, but if, like true men, you come out boldly, and plainly assert that the Government of the United States is the only power on earth which can insure to the inhabitants of America that protection to life, property, and fame which alone can make life tolerable, you will have some reason to ask of us protection and assistance, otherwise not.

General Grant is absent. I doubt if he will have time to notice your petition as he deals with a larger sphere, and I have only reduced these points to writing that your people may have something to think about, and divert your minds from the questions of cotton, niggers, and petty depredations, in which the enemies of all order and all government have buried up the real issues of this war.

I am, &c.,

W. T. SHERMAN,                

Major-General, Commanding.

_______________

* See Grant to Halleck, September 19, p. 732.

SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 30, Part 3 (Serial No. 52), p. 401-4

Captain Charles Wright Wills: June 19, 1863

Lagrange, Tenn., June 19, 1863.

The general and Sam went to Memphis yesterday to visit General Hurlbut, and the major and I have charge of the machine. The cavalry under command of Colonel Mizner went south last Tuesday. They have a good sized object in view, and if they succeed will be gone some ten days, though they may possibly be back by Wednesday next. They will operate between Panola and Grenada. Another mounted expedition has gone from Corinth to Okolona, a third from Corinth to Pikeville, Ala., and a fourth also from Corinth to Jackson, Tenn., which place has, since we evacuated it, been occupied by some Rebel cavalry (infantry also reported) from the east of the Tennessee river. All of this cavalry (of course excepting the Rebel) belongs to General Oglesby's command. You see he has it in motion. Deserters are constantly coming in from Johnston's army; and if we can believe their stories, and the information gained from the corps of spies employed along this line, Grant's rear is not in as much danger as our southern brethren would fain have us think. Johnston's army is not in the best condition imaginable; and it is far from being as strong as he would like it. Have no idea that he can march thirty-five thousand men. Grant must have an enormous army. How awful it would be if the yellow fever would visit his camps. I suppose you know that my regiment is at Snyder's Bluff. I think that is on the Yazoo, near Haines. Don't you see some more of my extraordinary fortune in being detached just as the regiment is ordered to where there is a prospect of hard knocks. We were all loaded on the cars ready to move, when Sam came down to the train and took me. The regiment then left immediately. There is a possible chance now of the general's being ordered to Vicksburg; but I've given up all hope of my getting there. We are having a great deal of trouble with the citizens here. A great many secesh citizens ask to be exempted from taking the oath, because they have rendered service to our army. This one gave a quart of buttermilk to a sick soldier, another donated an onion to the hospital, another allowed a sick officer to stay in his house for only $2. per day, etc. A number of the claims really have some point to them, and although 'tis against my theory, I really can't help pitying some of them. We had a sad accident last week near this post. General Hurlbut ordered a small train with a guard of some 60 men to be sent north on the railroad to repair the telegraph line. Twelve miles only from here the train broke through a little bridge over a deep but narrow "swash" and killed five and wounded ten of the party. An examination showed that the bridge had been burned the night before, and afterward the rails had been propped up only strongly enough to keep their places when no weight was upon them. 'Twas a fiendish, cowardly act, but of course committed by men whose business is robbery and murder, and who have no connection with the army.

SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 181-2

Captain Charles Wright Wills: March 15, 1863

Camp 103d Illinois Infantry, Lagrange, Tenn.,

March 15, 1863.

I have just returned from a walk to and inspection of the cemetery belonging to this nice little town. There, as everywhere, the marks of the “Vandal Yankees” are visible. The fence which formerly enclosed the whole grounds has long since vanished in thin air, after fulfilling its mission, boiling Yankee coffee, and frying Yankee bacon. Many of the enclosures of family grounds have also suffered the same fate, and others are broken down and destroyed. The cemeteries here are full of evergreens, hollies, cedars, and dwarf pines, and rosebushes and flowers of all kinds are arranged in most excellent taste. They pride themselves more on the homes of their dead than on the habitations of the living. I can't help thinking that their dead are the most deserving of our respect, though our soldiers don't waste much respect on either the living or dead chivalries. Many of the graves have ocean shells scattered over them, and on a number were vases in which the friends deposit boquets in the flower season. The vases have suffered some at the hands of the Yankees, and the names of Yanks anxious for notoriety are penciled thickly on the backs of marble grave stones. Quite a variety of flowers can now be found here in bloom. I have on my table some peach blossoms and one apple blossom, the first of the latter I have seen. Some of the early rosebushes are leaved out, and the grass is up enough to make the hillsides look quite springlike. For three or four days we have needed no fire, and my coat now hangs on the forked stick which answers for a hatrack in my tent. We left Jackson the morning of the 11th, all pleased beyond expression, to get away. We were from 8 a. m. until 11 o'clock p. m. coming here, only 55 miles. The engine stalled as many as ten times on up grades, and we would either have to run back to get a fresh start, or wait until a train came along whose engine could help us out. We lay loosely around the depot until daylight and then moved out to our present camp, which is one of the best I have ever seen, a nice, high ridge covered with fine old forest trees. This town has been most shamefully abused since we left here with the Grand Army last December. There are only about three houses which have a vestige of a fence left around them. All the once beautiful evergreens look as though three or four tornadoes had visited them and many of the finest houses have been compelled to pay as tribute to the camp fires, piazzas and weatherboarding. Not a chicken is left to crow or cackle, not a pig to squeal, and only such milch cows as were composed entirely of bone and cuticle. The 7th Cavalry is here, and also the 6th Illinois and 2d Iowa. There is only one other regiment of Infantry, the 46th Ohio. It does the picket duty and we are patroling and guarding the government stores. The duty is rather lighter than it was in Jackson, and more pleasant. We have no ground to complain now, and the paymaster is all we want to make us perfectly happy. Two nights before we left Jackson 23 of our regiment deserted, 17 of whom were out of Company A, one of the Lewistown companies. One was from my company, the first deserter I have had. He was detailed from Company A to my company and was besides the most worthless trifling pup in the army. I am accepting the disgrace of having one of my men desert, decidedly glad to be rid of him. Johnny Wyckoff came down a few days ago and after being in camp a few days came to me and said he had his parents' permission, so I got the colonel to swear him in. We'll make a drummer of him.

I suppose you will have seen in the Register before this reaches you the answer my company made to that Davidson's lie in regard to our vote on the resolutions. I did not see the paper until it was ready to send away. I think copperheadism is not worth quite the premium it was a few months since. These notes from the army should have some weight with the gentlemen that run the copper machine. Do you see how the Southern papers cut the scoundrels? That does me much good, though 'tis mortifying to think we have such dirt-catchers in our State.

Well, we are on the right track now, and a few more weeks and we will be steaming down the Mississippi, I think. Our next move will be Memphis, probably, and then, ho! for Vicksburg! That is rare good news from the Yazoo. I hope Ross has done something there. My health is excellent, 155 pounds of ham and crackers, for that is all I've eaten in four months. One hundred and sixty secesh soldiers lie as closely as they can be packed in this cemetery. Little boards with initials cut on them are all the marks their graves have. Our boys all cut on a large board with full name of regiment, and residence, at the head of their graves. I send you some blossoms from the graveyard.

SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 161-4

Captain Charles Wright Wills: February 25, 1863

Camp 103d Illinois Infantry, Jackson, Tenn.,

February 25, 1863.

I guess it's full two weeks since I wrote you last, excepting a half sheet a few days ago. My reason is that it has been raining ever since, and my tent leaks so that (that's rather a larger story than I think you'll swallow, so I'll not spoil paper by finishing it); but, Scotland, how it does rain here. Commences slowly and gently, comes straight down and continues coming for about 24 hours in the same manner. Mercury at about 35 degrees. Then the wind will commence blowing, cool, cooler, cold. Stop the rain, scatter the clouds, and getting warm again will, in a day or so, gather the moisture from the surface, and probably give us one pleasant day, rarely more. It seems to me there has not been a day this winter when the sun shone, and the air was calm, that I needed a fire, and I remember but one day during which the mercury sunk as low as 10 degrees. We had two nice “falls” of snow, but they found they'd lit in the wrong country and evacuated in quick time. It can't snow here to much advantage, but I am sure the rest of the world could learn from this region on the rain question. Canton is a parlor compared to this town. Part of the town is on rolling ground, but the hillside seems even muddier than the valleys. This town is thrice the size of Canton, and has ten times as many costly dwellings, but the sidewalks and streets will not compare with yours. The arrangements of gardens is passable and much taste is shown in the distribution of evergreens. One gentleman living between our camp and town has 10,000 pines, hollies, cedars, etc., in the grounds surrounding his house. The grounds comprise maybe fifteen acres. I mean he had 10,000 trees, but the Yankees burned the fences around his paradise, and have in various ways managed to destroy a few thousand evergreens A kind of a parody, you understand, on that Bible story of the devil in Eden. Colonel Kellogg is here to-night, but goes to Memphis to-morrow where he will join Colonel Babcock. They may both be here again within a week, but it is not certain. He says we may be thankful we are not in the Yazoo Swamp or at Vicksburg, but two months heavy picketing here have rendered me unable to see it in that light. Our pickets have been fired on twice during the last two days. Nobody hurt, I believe. We have news to-night of General Dodge, of Corinth, capturing some 200 prisoners and a train of wagons at Tuscumbia, Ala. How I do wish we could be sent into that country again. It's worth all the rest of the South that I have seen.. I have 11 negroes in my company now. They do every particle of the dirty work. Two women among them do the washing for the company. Three babies in the lot, all of which have run barefooted all the winter, and though they have also run at the nose, etc., some, seem to be healthy all the time.

SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 157-8

Diary of Gideon Welles: Tuesday, July 21, 1863

A dispatch from General Grant makes mention of large captures of cattle coming east from Texas, and of munitions going south to Kirby Smith. General Sherman is following up Joe Johnston.

A dispatch from Admiral Porter says that he, in concert with General Grant, sent an expedition up the Yazoo and that it was a complete success. Grant in his dispatch makes no mention of, or allusion to, the Navy in this expedition, nor of any consultation with Admiral Porter, although without the naval force and naval cooperation nothing could have been accomplished.

LeRoy telegraphs that he, with his gunboats, followed Morgan, or kept on his flank five hundred miles up the Ohio River, encountered him when attempting to cross the river near Bluffington, and drove him back.

The aspect of things is more favorable and it is amusing to read the English papers and speeches anticipating, hoping, predicting disaster to the Union cause. It will be more amusing to read the comments on the reception of intelligence by the steamer which left soon after the 4th inst.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 379

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: March 26, 1863

We have dispatches (unofficial) from the West, stating that one of the enemy's gun-boats has been sunk in attempting to pass Vicksburg, and another badly injured. Also that an engagement has occurred on the Yazoo, the enemy having several gun-boats sunk, the rest being driven back.

It snowed a little this morning, and is now clear and cold.

Mr. Seddon is vexed at the unpopularity of the recent impressments by his order. It was an odious measure, because it did not go far enough and take all, distributing enough among the people to crush the extortioners.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 279-80

Diary of Gideon Welles: April 2, 1863

Had a call last evening and again to-day from Senator Sumner. Our conversation was chiefly on our foreign relations, the unfortunate condition of public affairs, the inexcusable attitude of England, and the question of letters of marque. On the latter subject he is much dissatisfied with Mr. Seward. He informs me that he was opposed to the passage of the law at the late session, and is, I am glad to see, quite sensitive on the subject. I thought the law well enough as a precautionary measure, a warning to the mischievous spirits abroad, an authorization to the President in case of necessity, and especially as a weapon to coerce England into propriety. The power granted was extraordinary and to be used with discretion, but Mr. Seward, having obtained the authority, is disposed to exercise it. The merchants having been loud and profuse in their complaints and promises, he has taken it for granted that they would at once avail themselves of the law, and make a rush in a random search for a couple of lean and hungry wolves that are abroad, which would be difficult to catch and valueless when caught. I have questioned whether he could beguile merchants into such an investment, and he begins to feel uneasy that none have come forward as he expected.

In a letter which I commenced some days since and finished Saturday night, I put upon paper some of the suggestions, views, and doubts I have from time to time expressed in our discussions. This letter I gave out to be copied, and it was on my table for signature when I returned yesterday from Cabinet council. The English news was such that I laid it aside unsigned, and it was lying on the table when Sumner came in. He stated, among other things, he had been to the State Department and that Seward had given him the substance of the last dispatches. He asked if I had seen them. I answered that I had, and was so disgusted with them that I had laid by a letter which I had prepared in opposition to the current feeling which prevailed on the subject of letters of marque. He wished to read it, and after doing so complimented the letter with emphasis, and begged I would sign and send it.

Informed Admiral Foote that the Secretary of State desired he should go to New York in the service of the State Department, on the subject of letters of marque. He expressed his readiness to obey orders, but asked the object of detailing him. I gave him an outline of proceedings and what appeared to be the purpose of Mr. Seward, which was not very clear, or could not be plainly stated. No doubt he believes it will give importance to the Secretary of State to have a naval officer of the standing of Foote attached to the State Department and acting under its orders.

The President called at my house this evening, chiefly to see the letter which I had prepared concerning letters of marque. Senator Sumner had gone directly from the Navy Department to him, and so made known his gratification at my views and the manner in which I had stated them that the curiosity of the President was excited and he desired to read the letter. I informed him that the last thing I did before leaving the Department was to sign and send it to the Secretary of State; that I perhaps should not have done it, though, as he (the President) was aware, I had differed with him and others on this subject and looked upon it as a dangerous step, but since reading the last English dispatches, I was less opposed to the measure than I had been.

The opportunity being favorable and he disposed to converse and apparently interested in my remarks, I took occasion to enlarge upon the topic more fully than I had done in our Cabinet discussions. I started out with the proposition that to issue letters of marque would in all probability involve us in a war with England. [I said] that I had so viewed this question from the beginning, though he and Mr. Seward had not; that I was not prepared to deny that it might not be best for us to move promptly with that object in view, though it had not yet been urged or stated; but that if we were to resort to letters of marque we should do it understandingly and with all the consequences before us. The idea that private parties would send out armed ships to capture the Alabama and one, possibly two, other rovers of the Rebels was too absurd to be thought of for a moment. If privateers were fitted out for any purpose it would be to capture neutral vessels intended to run the blockade or supposed to be in that service. It was not difficult for us to foresee that such a power in private hands would degenerate into an abuse for which this Government would be held responsible. The Rebels have no commerce to invite private enterprise. So far as the Rebels were concerned, therefore, I had been opposed to committing the Government to the measure. But the disclosures recently made had given a different aspect to the question. There was little doubt the British Government and British capital were encouraging the rebellion; that that Government intended to interpose no obstacle to prevent the sending out of privateers from British ports to depredate upon our commerce; that these privateers, though sailing under the Confederate flag, would be the property of British merchants; that the rich plunder would repay the lawless English adventurer, knowing he had the sanction of his Government; that this combination of British capital with Rebel malignity and desperation would despoil our commerce and drive it from the seas. Our countrymen would not quietly submit to these wrongs and outrages, and allow Englishmen to make war upon us in disguise under the Rebel flag. We ought, therefore, to have an immediate and distinct understanding with the English Government. It should be informed in terms that could not be mistaken or misunderstood that if this policy was persisted in we should in self-defense be under the necessity of resorting to reprisals. In this view the law which authorized letters of marque had appeared to me proper, and might be made useful as a menace and admonition to England; and I repeated what I had said to the Secretary of State in reply to a remark of his that we must make more extensive naval operations against the Rebels by issuing letters of marque to annoy them, — that letters of marque, instead of annoying them, destitute as they were of commerce, would aid them, for that step would involve war with England. If the Secretary of State would be less yielding and more decisive in asserting our rights with that power, it would, I thought, be better for the country.

I then opened on the subject generally. England is taking advantage of our misfortunes and would press upon us just as far as we would bear to be pressed. She rejoiced in our dissensions and desired the dismemberment of the Union. With this rebellion on our hands we were in no condition for a war with her, and it was because we were in this condition that she was arrogant and presuming. A higher and more decisive tone towards her will secure a different policy on her part. A war with England would be a serious calamity to us, but scarcely less serious to her. She cannot afford a maritime conflict with us, even in our troubles, nor will she. We can live within ourselves if worse comes to worse. Our territory is compact, facing both oceans, and in latitudes which furnish us in abundance without foreign aid all the necessaries and most of the luxuries of life; but England has a colonial system which was once her strength, but is her weakness in these days and with such a people as our countrymen to contend with. Her colonies are scattered over the globe. We could, with our public and private armed ships, interrupt and destroy her communication with her dependencies, her colonies, on which she is as dependent for prosperity as they on her.

I was therefore in favor of meeting her face to face, asking only what is right but submitting to nothing that is wrong.

If the late dispatches are to be taken as the policy she intends to pursue, it means war, and if war is to come it looks to me as of a magnitude greater than the world has ever experienced, — as if it would eventuate in the upheaval of nations, the overthrow of governments and dynasties. The sympathies of the mass of mankind would be with us rather than with the decaying dynasties and the old effete governments. Not unlikely the conflict thus commenced would kindle the torch of civil war throughout Christendom, and even nations beyond. I desired no such conflict in my day, and therefore hoped and believed the policy and tone of England might be modified, but it would require energy, resolution, and a firm determination on our part to effect it.

The President listened, for I did most of the talking, as he evidently wished, and showed much interest and accord in what I said. He assented consequently to most that I uttered and controverted nothing. It was evident I suggested some ideas that had not before occurred to him, and I am not without hope that the tone of our foreign affairs, particularly with England, may be different.

The President spoke, as he always has done with me, doubtingly of Porter's schemes on the Mississippi, or rather the side movements to the Yazoo on the east and Red River on the west. Said the long delay of Du Pont, his constant call for more ships, more ironclads, was like McClellan calling for more regiments. Thought the two men were alike, and said he was prepared for a repulse at Charleston.

[The letter referred to above was signed and sent with date of March 31.]

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 251-9

Diary of Gideon Welles: Wednesday, February 18, 1863

Have a long dispatch from Admiral Porter relative to operations on the Mississippi, a cut at the Delta between Helena and the Yazoo on the east, and at Lake Providence into Tensas on the west.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 238

Diary of Sir Arthur James Lyon Fremantle: Friday, May 22, 1863

The bombardment at Vicksburg was very heavy and continuous this morning.

I had a long conversation with General Johnston, who told me that the principal evils which a Confederate general had to contend against consisted in the difficulty of making combinations, owing to uncertainty about the time which the troops would take to march a certain distance, on account of their straggling propensities.

But from what I have seen and heard as yet, it appears to me that the Confederates possess certain great qualities as soldiers, such as individual bravery and natural aptitude in the use of firearms, strong, determined patriotism, and boundless confidence in their favourite generals, and in themselves. They are sober of necessity, as there is literally no liquor to be got. They have sufficient good sense to know that a certain amount of discipline is absolutely necessary; and I believe that instances of insubordination are extremely rare. They possess the great advantage of being led by men of talent and education as soldiers who thoroughly understand the people they have to lead, as well as those they have to beat. These generals, such as Lee, Johnston, Beauregard, or Longstreet, they would follow anywhere, and obey implicitly. But, on the other hand, many of their officers, looking forward to future political advancement, owing to their present military rank, will not punish their men, or are afraid of making themselves obnoxious by enforcing rigid discipline. The men are constantly in the habit of throwing away their knapsacks and blankets on a long march, if not carried for them, and though actuated by the strongest and purest patriotism, can often not be got to consider their obligations as soldiers. In the early part of the war they were often, when victorious, nearly as disorganised as the beaten, and many would coolly walk off home, under the impression that they had performed their share. But they are becoming better in these respects as the war goes on.¹

All this would account for the trifling benefits derived by the Confederates from their numerous victories.

General Johnston told me that Grant had displayed more vigour than he had expected, by crossing the river below Vicksburg, seizing Jackson by vastly superior force, and, after cutting off communications, investing the fortress thoroughly, so as to take it if possible before a sufficient force could be got to relieve it. His army is estimated at 75,000 men, and General Johnston has very little opinion of the defences of Vicksburg on the land side. He said the garrison consisted of about 20,000 men.

News has been received that the Yankees were getting up the Yazoo river; and this morning General Walker's division left at 6 A.M. for Yazoo city.

The General with his Staff and myself rode into Canton, six miles, and lodged in the house of a planter who owned 700 slaves.

Dr Yandell is a wonderful mimic, and amused us much by taking off the marriage ceremony, as performed by General Polk in Tennesse — General Morgan of Kentucky notoriety being the bridegroom.²

One of Henderson's scouts caused much hilarity amongst the General's Staff this afternoon. He had brought in a Yankee prisoner, and apologised to General Johnston for doing so, saying, “I found him in a negro quarter, and he surrendered so quick, I couldn't kill him.” There can be no doubt that the conduct of the Federals in captured cities tends to create a strong indisposition on the part of the Confederates to take prisoners, particularly amongst these wild Mississippians.

General Johnston told me this evening that altogether he had been wounded ten times. He was the senior officer of the old army who joined the Confederates, and he commanded the Virginian army until he was severely wounded at the battle of “Seven Pines.”³

_______________

¹ After having lived with the veterans of Bragg and Lee, I was able to form a still higher estimate of Confederate soldiers. Their obedience and forbearance in success, their discipline under disaster, their patience under suffering, under hardships, or when wounded, and their boundless devotion to their country under all circumstances, are beyond all praise.

² When I was introduced to General Polk in Tennessee I recognised him at once by Dr Yandell's imitation, which was most wonderfully accurate.

³ Called "Fairoaks" by the Yankees.

SOURCE: Sir Arthur James Lyon Fremantle, Three Months in the Southern States: April-June, 1863, p. 121-4

Brigadier-General Thomas Kilby Smith to Elizabeth Budd Smith, December 25, 1864

On Board Str. “Huntsman,”

Cumberland River, Christmas, 1864.

We left Louisville Thursday evening last and, just as the boat was shoving off, I indicted you a brief note. We have progressed thus far, having a few moments since left Fort Donaldson without accident. Fort Donaldson, as you are aware, was the scene of General Grant's first great victory, and the starting-point to his present greatness. I caught but a bird's-eye view of the fortifications; from the river side they seem almost impregnable. It is now garrisoned by some twelve hundered troops. All the way to this point we have been warned to keep a bright lookout for guerillas, this boat being the pioneer from Louisville. I have apprehended no danger and feel satisfied that so far as these gentry are concerned we shall reach our destination unobstructed. The anniversary, as usual, brings no joy to me, save that, to-day, I have leisure in quiet to make a retrospect of the past. Last Christmas I passed on the banks of the Yazoo, reviewing the field of battle on which I had fought just a year prior to this time. How fraught with events to me these years have been, and now I wonder where my next Christmas will find me.

I thought when I started to keep something like a log or diary of my wanderings, but so thorough a nomad have I become, so used to the current events of everyday travel, especially by steamboat, that something of a really startling nature must transpire to make me think it worth while to note. I would renew a former injunction to follow my course on the map. Trace me down the Ohio to the mouth of the Cumberland, and up. It will be a good way for the children to learn something of the geography of the country by following in imagination their father's wanderings, in thousands of miles through various States from the Gulf of Mexico to the extreme New England coast. It will seem incredible to you, until after careful study, how much I have passed over within the past year, and all without the slightest accident from the perils of navigation or travel by land. I lay me down at night to sleep with the same confidence with which I share your pillow; I wake in the morning to find myself hundreds of miles from where I had my last waking dream or dreaming thought. The bird of passage is hardly fleet enough of wing to outstrip me in my wandering. The weather was very cold the day we left Louisville, the next still colder but clear and beautiful and the morning sun rose and glittered upon one of the strangest scenes I have ever witnessed in nature. A very heavy fog rose from the river about one o'clock, and settling upon the trees and shrubs imperceptibly froze and gathered until everything that had a spray was clothed with the lightest feathery texture that can be imagined, lighter, purer, whiter than the softest driven snow, and each little flake looking like a small plume, all nodding and waving to the passing air; all this the sun shone upon from a cloudless horizon through rosy tints and such a sunrise has rarely been witnessed. The captain of our boat, an old man, who has been upon the river thirty years, saw no sight like it, and the commonest deckhand looked on with rapture at the beauty. All day under a bright sun, but with a freezing atmosphere we glided through the drift of a full and rising river, and, by starlight, kept on through the night coursing the bends and running the chutes bank full; the next day was warm, and yesterday, as we struck the mouth of the Cumberland, the air was soft and balmy as a day in May. We are running now nearly due south, but a light rain is falling; it is a soft, green Christmas here. No passengers on the boat; Joe and the horses, and officers and the crew, all. We are freighted with iron and lumber, oats and corn. I tread the deck sole monarch of the steamboat. The Cumberland winds through high banks of limestone rock, rich with iron and coal, occasional bottoms fertile for corn, but the rolling land back thin and sterile.

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 371-3

Brigadier-General Thomas Kilby Smith to Eliza Walter Smith, January 18, 1864

Headquarters First Brigade,

Fourth Div., Seventeenth Army Corps,

Department Of The Tennessee,

In The Field, January 18, 1864.

My Dear Mother:

Here I find myself isolé, and until further orders must so remain. The government of the army is strictly monarchical, almost a pure despotism. An eminent English jurist asserts that there is no such thing as martial law, or in other words, that martial law may be defined to be the will of the general in command. A true soldier, the instant he enlists or accepts a commission, surrenders all freedom of action, almost all freedom of thought. Every personal feeling is superseded by the interests of the cause to which he devotes himself. He goes wherever ordered, he performs whatever he is commanded, he suffers whatever he is enjoined ; he becomes a mere passive instrument for the most part incapable of resistance. The graduation of ranks is only a graduation in slavery. I desire to become a good and practical soldier and strategist, one whose labor and conduct no enemy will ever laugh at in battle, no friend ever find insufficient, as such, to serve my country so long as she may need my services or until they cease to be valuable.

As for this country I am in, I feel perfectly incapable of conveying an adequate idea of the dreary lonely nakedness that surrounds me. The curse of Babylon has fallen upon it. It is “a desolation, a dry land and a wilderness." I have in former letters adverted to the peculiar geological formation of the chain of bluffs upon a portion of which I am now encamped. The chain is about three hundred miles in length, always on the east side of the Mississippi, and as some geologist asserts has been blown up, formed like snowdrifts by the action of the wind in former ages. Be this as it may, the face of the country upon them has very much the appearance of a succession of snow-drifts upon which a sudden thaw has begun to act. The top soil has no tenacity, although fertile, and when broken for cultivation, yields like sugar or salt to the action of the elements. The country is not undulating but broken in precipitous hills; deep ravines, gorges, and defiles mark the ways. Upon the hillsides not too steep for the passage of the plough, where have been the old cotton-fields, the land lies in hillocks, resembling newly-made graves. And as the area upon which the great staple could be produced is extensive, one may ride for many miles over what, with little stretch of imagination, may be considered an immense graveyard. To add to the gloom and desolation, are the charred remains of burned dwellings, cotton sheds and cotton-gin houses, gardens and peach orchards laid open and waste, negro quarters unroofed, long lines of earthworks and fortifications, trenches and rifle-pits, traversing roadways, cutting in their passage hamlet or dwelling, plantation and wilderness. Huge flocks of buzzards, ravens and carrion crows, continually wheel, circle, and hover over the war-worn land. The bleaching bones of many a mule and horse show where they have held high carnival, and for them much dainty picking still remains, as the spring rains wash off the scanty covering of the soldiers who have gone to rest along the banks of the Yazoo. The patriot veteran who packs an '' Enfield " is as a general rule superficially buried in his blanket, if he falls in battle, on the spot where he falls, unless, wounded, he crawls to a sheltered nook to find a grave — happy, then, if he's buried at all. Many a corpse I've seen swelled up and black, with its eyes picked out, which, while it was a man, had dragged itself for shelter and out of sight, and been overlooked by the burial fatigues. This, as father used to say, is a digression. Off from the cultivated lands are canebrakes, dense jungles of fishing poles of all sizes. The little reed of which they make pipe stems that grows as thick on the ground as wheat stalks in a field, and the great pole thirty feet high and as thick as your wrist. Occasional forests, and there some of the trees are majestic and beautiful; not a few of them evergreen, one, the name of which I cannot get, with a bright green spiked leaf bearing a beautiful bright red berry, grows large and branching and shows finely. The magnolia is evergreen. I send specimens of both in the box, though I fear they will wither before they will reach you; also some of the moss that attaches itself to every tree that grows, and some that don't, or rather, has done growing and are dead. Through this country I have penetrated in all directions where there are roadways and where there are none, and sometimes have had a high old time in finding my way. The better portion of the inhabitants have abandoned — some refugees at the North, some in the rebel army, some fled to Georgia and Alabama, the few that remain are the poorest sort of white trash. This element, as a general rule, is Union in sentiment. They possess strange characteristics common to the class wherever I have met them in Tennessee, Arkansas, or Mississippi, but not in Louisiana. They are ignorant, and rather dirty, I mean uncleanly, in their habits, always miserably poor and miserably clad, and yet, the women especially, possessed of a certain unaccountable refinement and gentleness almost approaching gentility. The children are pretty, even with the unkempt head and grimy features. Men and women always have delicate hands and feet, the high instep and Arab arch is the general rule. There 's blood somewhere run to seed. There is great suffering among the people of all classes, and the end is not yet. I enclose you one or two intercepted letters.

In the jungles and canebreaks and the thickets of the forest there are many cattle and hogs running wild; some are Texas cattle that have escaped from the droves of the rebels while they were in occupation; some have escaped from our own droves; some have belonged to the planters, and have been run off to prevent their falling into the hands of either party, and so long have they been neglected that at last they have become wild, almost like buffalo, or elk, and run like the devil at the sight of man on foot or horseback. These animals we sometimes circumvent, and I make up expeditions for that purpose, taking out wagon-trains, shooting and butchering the beef and pork, and hauling it in dead. The wildness of the animals gives these forays the excitement of grand battles and hunts. The meat is excellent, and my mess table since I have been here well supplied. Thrice since I have been here I have journeyed to headquarters at Vicksburg, and twice have been visited by the general commanding, McPherson; with these intervals, I have been without companionship. In the evenings I sit quite alone, except I have a terrier puppy I brought with me from Natchez, who seems disposed to become social. Last winter at Young's Point, and indeed ever since I have been in the field till now, I have been most fortunate in social commune. General Sherman has been a host to me, and while he was within ten miles I was never at a loss for somebody to talk to. General Stuart was a very fascinating man, and I have never been very far away from General Grant and staff. But now I am quite alone, and for two months have hardly heard the sound of a woman's voice. My horses are a great comfort to me, and, thank God, are all well; I am much blessed in horseflesh. Captain is gay as a lark; no better little horse ever trod on iron. He's as game to-day as a little peacock. My other horses you never saw. They are superb and sublime. Bell is confessedly the finest horse in the army, East or West. J. L. is well and growing. He starts to-morrow morning at three o'clock upon an expedition to the Yazoo River to give battle to some wild ducks. I have no faith in the expedition.

My command of infantry will all re-enlist as veterans; the major part of my cavalry. General Sherman, I learn to-day by telegraph from Vicksburg, was there for a short time. I did not see him. I have a telegraph office and operator for my own use, and am in communication with Vicksburg and the other headquarters over a considerable extent of country. I can tell you nothing further that I think would interest you concerning my inner life here, so far away for the time being, and for certain purposes I am an independent chieftain leading a wild enough life. “No one to love, none to caress.”

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 350-4

Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith to Eliza Walter Smith, March 1, 1863

Headquarters Second Brigade, Second Division,

Fifteenth Army Corps, March 1, 1863.

My Dear Mother:

You speak of my name not appearing in the Commercial; if our official reports were published by that sheet it would appear. I have sent you copies of both reports, of my immediate commanders, of the recent battles. I believe my name is sufficiently conspicuous in both; it is equally conspicuous in the report of General Sherman. Flattery is contemptible to both parties; all but flattery I think my commanders have given me. That my name does not appear in the public prints is simply because I will not resort to the usual means and appliances to place it there. If I was a merchant or an inventor of quack medicines, I would advertise to fill my purse, but I cannot, I do not know how to advertise my honor, and I am almost ashamed to seek for that preferment which I should be accorded without the asking. Even in the seeking, if I know myself, I am unselfish in intent, for I think, nay, know, that I can serve my country better in the position I want to have guaranteed to me — the one I now hold — than as the commanding officer of a regiment literally hacked and hewed to pieces in battle, to say nothing of accident or disease on the long and tiring march, the loathsome transport, the unhealthy camp. There are but few left of the brave hearts that followed me to the field. The graves of their dead are land-marks on eighteen hundred weary miles that their survivors are away — away from homes on the banks of the Miamies and the Sandusky, and the Scioto, and the Muskingum, from the farm and the village, from the workshop and the college, the railroad and the factory, all the way from the Ohio River to the shores of Erie. The whole State of Ohio, emphatically almost every county in it, was represented by my regiment, and such a regiment her borders will never raise again; leal hearts and hardy frames, young, joyous, full of fire and enterprise and patriotism ; and, God help me, how many are gone! Their bones bleach — bleach, that 's the word, for graves were shallow and coffins they had none at “Shiloh” — their graves dot Tennessee from Corinth to Memphis. Unshrouded and unanealed their ghastly corpses gibber in the moonlight on the banks of the Yazoo ; and at Arkansas Post the rude head boards tell where the dead braves of the “54th” rest. A handful are left — less than three hundred all told.

In respect to General Sherman and the press, I have written at some length in a former letter that you doubtless have before this received. Not the press, but the infernal scoundrels who prostitute it by making it a medium for their base designs upon individuals, the public, and the nation, does he propose not only to muzzle but destroy. General Sherman will live in history, and in the hearts of his countrymen when these wretched myrmidons shall have passed to infamy and eternal death. The reaction in his favor is sure to come. No man ever lived who, possessing his talents and energy, and purity of life and heart and purposes, failed to make his mark upon the times; and as sure as he now lives, he will illustrate his position, and cause his name to shine brightly on the page of history. His father-in-law, Mr. Ewing, quoted from Macaulay, and applied most appositely to him the sentence “fierce denunciation and high panegyric make up what men call glory”; both the former has General Sherman had in no stinted measure, but his true glory is in his native excellence; his full power has not yet been shown. O, Mother! if you had seen that man as I have seen him, if you could have sat by his side as I have sat, amid death and destruction, when the fate of a nation seemed to hang and . . . in my opinion did then hang on his word; had you watched him as I watched, and noted him exalted above materiality, towering above and beyond the sense of pain and fear of death ; had you scanned his eagle eye flashing and blazing with the fire of intellect, and in its comprehensive glance taking in and weighing the fate of thousands; had you known him as I knew him, win a great, a glorious battle, great as Waterloo, and which ought to have been decisive, and that would, within twenty-four hours of its close, have been decisive of the fate of the Republic had he been alone in command, you would spurn the lucubrations of the miserable drivellers, who like mousing owls are hawking at the eagle towering in his pride of place, as utterly unworthy a second thought. Have you ever known me deceived in my judgment of men so far as intellect is concerned? Where to-day are the friends and companions of my early youth and young manhood? Some are dead, but the good was not interred with their bones; they still live. One (you well know whom I mean) has made his opinions in the jurisprudence of Ohio classical; his faults, his vices, if you please, are forgotten; his graces, the strength of his glorious intellect, still illumines. Sherman is greater than he, and oh! far better, and trust me, when lesser lights go out or feebly glimmer in obscurity, his will shine out a bright particular star in the political firmament, a guiding star to those who come after him. If I could only approach him in example, you would have a son to be proud of. To me it is a matter of great pride that I have had the inestimable privilege of almost intimate association with him for a year past, by day and by night, in the peril of the field and the pleasures of the social board. I have never heard him utter a word that would bring the blush to the cheek of maiden purity. I have never known him insult his God; he is invariable in his just respect for the rights of others, and though he rarely smiles, though to the vast responsibilities with which he has been clothed, all the amenities of life with him have been sacrificed; still, with a cheering amiability of heart, he has been foremost in strewing the few flowers that give fragrance to the thorny pathway of the soldier.

As respects Vicksburg, I cannot, ought not, to write you much — time alone can tell what will be the result of our enterprise. All that men can do will be performed; the rest is with the God of battles, who holds in His hands the fate of nations. I send a little sketch which may serve to give you some faint idea of the topography of the country. By the bye, I have learned that the name “Yazoo,” in the Indian tongue, signifies death — “Yazoo River,” the river of death — and truly its waters are most abominable, dealing death to almost all who drank freely of them, while its stream ran red with the blood of those slain on its banks. You will note its course, the position of the bayous, and where our troops fought. The celebrated “Haines Bluff” and our present position toward Vicksburg.

I have written to you that I enjoyed a soldier's life, and indeed I do notwithstanding its privations and discomforts, and in this, that it is a life of excitement and free from the care that has heretofore been my portion. With you I mourn that I did not enter the military academy when I had the opportunity, and fit myself while young for a brilliant military career, for I feel that it might have been made brilliant. Youth wasted! well, why look back? That “might have been” weighs often upon me like an incubus. If I could only keep fresh my youthful feelings.

Colonel Spooner has probably been detained in his own State partly by family bereavement and partly by business. I shall hope he will be able to see you all before he returns. He is in my command, and can tell you a great deal about me. I am glad you were pleased with Major Fisher; he is a favorite of mine and I have always kept him near my person. He is possessed of a fine and cultivated mind, is amiable in character, but cool and brave in action. Was educated in his profession, of which he is a master, by General Rosecrans, and was promoted to his majority for his gallantry at Carnifex Ferry in Virginia, and assigned to my regiment. In case I am promoted, I design he shall command it. He met with a great affliction in the loss of his wife, a most lovely girl, and her child, within a year of his marriage, and his life has been clouded and embittered in consequence. I believe he is most sincerely attached to me, indeed I have been fortunate in making many friends in the service, and I doubt not an equal number of enemies.

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 274-8

Diary of Alexander G. Downing: Sunday, August 9, 1863

I was detailed on a foraging party today. There were two hundred men and one hundred wagons, accompanied by a squad of cavalry as a picket guard. We went up the Yazoo river bottoms about five miles and loaded our wagons with green corn, which we found in abundance. It was very hot, and the work was strenuous, besides its being on the Lord's Day — but such is the life of a soldier.

Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 134