By 6 a. m. all ready march to the river descend at a steep
bluff, was possible to get down but impossible to get up if up was the word,
were conveyed from the shore to the boat on a coal flat at 2 loads, & at
7.15, the boat started, the weather was fine & had a pleasant ride no
accidents, the boat laid in too close in making one short turn & was some
10 minutes getting her clear. All the country until we reach Mc Intoshs Bluffs
is over flowed we disembark at Mc Intoshs Bluffs at 11 a. m. Bluffs here are
not more than 12 ft high, there are 4 dwellings, 3 families living here one
story & a half dwelling house through which one of the gunboats fired a
shell just a week ago at a Mr Vaugn who shot at a skiff load of negroes coming
down to the Boat, is vacant the family having left soon after the gunboat left
which stayed but a short time, a black smith shop with 6 forces & cranes
built for heavy work, a large carpenter shop & piles of timber which were
to have been a Gunboat had not the yankees come too quick a good saw &
grist mill at work, the hull of an unfinished ram built 20 miles above &
float here & burned lay at the landing. Several small flats of negros &
some whites come down the river, all report the Reb fleet of 2 gunboats &
27 transports at Damopolus, found chickens & pigs plenty, no fat cattle, at
4, P. M. just as a transport was landing we were about to build breastworks,
but being reinforced thus did not. & I took a cart & five men to the
contry for some bacon. Capt Rankin took two others out to old Parson Rushs (an
old nigger driver) for Sweet potatoes. I got back just at dusk, fond the Regt
together & camping about ½ mile from the river. The whole Brigade had
arrived on Transports. The Regt teams not coming we took the cars & were to
10. P. M. getting all our baggage up to the Regt. Quite a no of citizens come
in amongst whom was the wife of Capt Jonston who surrendered the Tennesee. Capt
Taylor & river Pilots, Mrs Bates & others. Any no of darkies, the
balance of the Division is said to becoming Inland.
SOURCE: “Diary of John S. Morgan, Company G, 33rd Iowa
Infantry,” Annals of Iowa, 3rd Series, Vol. 13, No. 8, April 1923,
p. 595
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