All the Regts rec orders to be supplied with 5 days rations
in their haver sacks. Capt Lacy was in our camp looking well & hearty. Mail
is to go out at 10. a. m. until which time spend the time in writing. After
dinner Templeton & I go out to see the fortifications, see many pools of
blood. Can see Mobile from the forts & see some rebel batteries out in the
Bay firing at our gunboats & shelling a pontoon bridge we have across
Spanish river See a squad of rebs under guard taking up the torpedos which are
thickly strewn, the roads are full, they uncover them & build a fire on
them to explode them. the pieces fly about with a wicked noise. Saw one place
where in the charge 4 men were Killed by the explosion of one torpdo. The
Jonnies had extensive works laid off here which would have taken a year to
complete but the works completed are ugly to get to over fallen timber &
brush thick abbattis & dead loads of torpedos. About 150 of the men who had
been at Spanish fort were captured this morning they not knowing this place had
been taken were making their way up here. I was to see them & pronounce
them the best looking confeds I ever saw, when the forts here were charged
yesterday there were two Genls there, but one was taken & it is supposed
the other escaped with some of his men who swam the river, but this evening he
was captured. he had secreted himself in an commissary boat & undertook to
get out & run for it but there were too many guards with muskets close by
to allow that. It is rumored here this evening that about two hundred prisoners
were taken, found in their holes close by Spanish fort think this not reliable.
A supply train started to Thomas early this morning, saw a small detachment of
cavalry from his army who say they saw no rebels between him & no report
his men wanting grub. Genl Steeles command is ordered to be ready for a forward
movement where to not known, the way to Mobile by land is 130 miles & there
is a camp rumor that Steeles corps & Smiths corps are to go to the rear of
Mobile & Grangers corps to Thomas Who will opperate somewhere above, heavy
firing has been kept up all day in the bay but do not learn with what effect
SOURCE: “Diary of John S. Morgan, Company G, 33rd Iowa
Infantry,” Annals of Iowa, 3rd Series, Vol. 13, No. 8, April 1923,
p. 588
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