Rained heavily last night, nearly all night; cloudy this
morning. Received permission for twenty-one days to go home, from headquarters,
seven days additional from Colonel Scammon, and an assurance of three days'
grace. Total thirty-one.
People constantly come who are on their way to Ohio,
Indiana, or other Western States. Many of them young men who are foot-loose,
tired of the war. No employment, poor pay, etc., etc., is driving the laboring
white people from the slave States.
Mr. Ellison and his wife and little boy are here to see
their son John R, who is a prisoner in our guardhouse; to be sent to the
government prison at Columbus as a prisoner of war. They seem glad to find
their son safe out of the Rebel ranks and not at all averse to his going to
Columbus as a prisoner of war. Their only fear seems to be that he will be
exchanged into the Rebel army again.
Spent the evening in a jolly way at headquarters with Avery,
Kennedy, Hunter, etc. Colonel Scammon gone to Raleigh; expected his return but
didn't come. Read the “Island,” in “Lady of the Lake,” to Avery.
SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and
Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 196-7
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